Regional Design Director

Summary

Join CannonDesign as a Regional Design Director and lead a team of 150-300 design professionals across multiple offices. Transform design excellence by overseeing design quality, leading design reviews, and securing design awards. Nurture a collaborative design community, mentor future leaders, and champion Living-Centered Design. Transform the design team by fostering innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurship. Transform the organization by contributing to strategic growth plans and achieving financial targets. Demonstrate design talent through a strong portfolio and awards, and possess strong communication, leadership, and business acumen. This role requires significant experience in design leadership and a commitment to Living-Centered Design.

Requirements

• Have demonstrable design talent through a design portfolio of significant built and unbuilt work
• Have third party recognition of your work as a lead designer by local, regional, and national design awards programs and recognized design publications or digital platforms
• Possess strong communication skills
• Have aptitude for communicating complex ideas, both business and design ideas, in a compelling manner
• Be a leading voice in firm-wide meetings, and events
• Provide inspirational leadership to your region communicating design aspirations, outcomes, directions, and initiatives to our people
• Have ability to manage a diverse team of creatives in architecture and other disciplines spread across multiple offices
• Forge a strong sense of connection and identity among the regional design leaders, both building a creative community and promoting their collaboration with other disciplines
• Be comfortable with basic managerial skills: hiring, design management and creative operations, and resource allocation
• Possess general fluency in regional and firm business metrics
• Understand how to translate the strategic framework into regional growth goals
• Contribute leadership skills in concert with the Regional Director in the development and execution of a regional strategy focused on growth and impact, including achieving top line targets and successful financial results which will support a minimum 10% growth of the region year over year
• Support design-led growth initiatives in other regions
• Demonstrate the ability and aptitude for innovative design solutions that address the challenges of people, business, community, society and the environment
• Be driven to challenge the status quo and find new solutions
• Be willing to “develop the highest potential, best opportunities for strategic differentiation – our competitive advantages – and take them further, faster.”
• Support a culture of collaboration, transparency, safety and trust
• Take a collaborative approach to understanding organizational problems
• Partner with our most strategic thinkers to advance our goal of harnessing Living-Centered Design for every client to transform their business and the impact they make in the world
• Recruit, retain and grow mid-career design talent to be senior design leaders for the region and the firm
• Empower design leaders in your region to build high-performance teams, to delegate effectively within their offices and nurture future leaders
• Possess a passion for understanding our business and the business of our clients and seek continuous improvement for both
• Contribute to leading a region that supports the firm’s financial success
• Define our design brand through excellence in the region’s work
• Partner with the Regional Director to selectively curate the work we pursue or are called upon to do and build a culture of clients for life over commodity work
• Have a Bachelor’s or master’s degree in architecture
• Have at least 20 years of related experience in design leadership roles or equivalent
• Have a minimum of 3 years’ experience leading others in a design studio or design practice segment
• Have strong oral presentation and storytelling skills
• Be able to understand and execute business strategy
• Have professional acumen and maturity demonstrated by the ability to communicate authentically and respectfully
• Be willing to travel

Responsibilities

• Oversee and lead creative and innovative excellence in a specific geographic area
• Be accountable for design excellence and overall design quality across the region
• Hold virtual and in-person regional design-standard reviews
• Provide oversight of regional third-party recognition, including publication of projects
• Regularly submit and successfully win design awards
• Be a leading voice for how our Living-Centered Design ethos is translated through our work with clients
• Partner with marketing and communications teams to build strong narratives and communicate the impact of our work at a regional level
• Represent the Firm externally at regional events, conferences and broader events
• Write, speak and communicate externally through 3-5 venues annually
• Work with the Executive and communications teams annually to identify strategic placement / speaking opportunities
• Share the responsibilities of senior design leaders, leading select clients to innovative design concepts
• Deliver solutions uniquely responsive to this expanded view of design impact
• Lead design presentations, with an emphasis on storytelling and aiding client understanding of the design
• Capture and communicate key client goals and metrics and how our design solutions add value
• Nurture a community of designers in your region
• Set the standard for an environment that exemplifies collaboration, experimentation, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship
• Partner with the Executive Director of Design in the recruitment of and retention of senior design leaders
• Hold senior design leaders in your region accountable for the mentorship and growth of the next generation of design leaders
• Ensure high-performance design teams are functioning in all offices in the region, and coordinate with the Regional Director, Regional Practice Director and Office Practice Leaders to fill creative talent gaps
• Be an ambassador with your regional leadership team of our brand, responsible for demonstrating how our Living-Centered Design ethos comes to life in our culture and in the way we partner with clients, and in our work
• Be the leading regional voice for the firm’s design aspiration to be one of the most innovative, creative, and highly regarded impact-driven solutions design firms in the world
• Be an integral part of the regional leadership team and ensure that our design aspirations are considered in regional and firm business goals
• Be a key participant in the definition and execution of a strategic regional growth plan
• Be a partner in your regional leadership team and engage with others in the firm, office, and market leadership to develop and implement a business plan
• Be responsible for engaging senior design leaders within your region as appropriate to participate in the process, take ownership, communicate, and champion the initiatives set forth

Preferred Qualifications

• Have a Bachelor’s or master’s degree in architecture from an accredited program
• Have current US Architectural Registration
• Have additional accreditation and/or training relevant to this role, including LEED
• Have a design portfolio of significant built and unbuilt work. Third party recognition of your work as a lead or supporting design role by local, regional, or national design awards programs and recognized design publications or digital platforms

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision coverage
• Flexible spending account options
• Voluntary insurances
• Paid time off
• Flex-time schedules
• Remote work options
• 401k plan
• Employee perk programs
• Discretionary bonuses