Head of Product Design

Position Summary:

Our partner is a large, established hospitality organization with more than 10,000 hotel rooms and 15,000 employees, embarking on a companywide digital transformation. Historically, its customer-facing products have been supported by consulting partners and third-party platforms. The organization is now building an internal Product Design capability to assume ownership of and continue evolving customer-facing experiences across multiple enterprise initiatives.

Working alongside senior Product and Engineering leaders, this leader will establish the design vision, UX standards, multi-brand design system, research practices, and AI-enabled workflows supporting these customer experiences. The scope combines the ownership found in an early-stage product organization with the scale, established brands, and customer base of a mature hospitality business.

There is no mature internal Product Design organization to inherit. The ideal candidate combines the hands-on depth of a Principal Product Designer with the functional ownership of a Head of Product Design, remaining personally involved in customer journeys, prototypes, usability decisions, design systems, and production delivery while building the team and operating model.

Experience and Education:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Human-Computer Interaction, Product Design, Interaction Design, a related field, or an equivalent professional background.
• Senior-level background leading Product Design for complex customer-facing digital products while remaining actively involved in design execution.
• Proven success establishing or maturing Product Design capabilities within startup, scale-up, or enterprise transformation environments.
• Track record creating and scaling design systems across multiple digital products or brands.
• Direct involvement transitioning Product Design ownership from external partners to internal Product and Technology teams.
• Practical application of AI-assisted Product Design within commercial product environments.

Skills and Strengths:

• Product Design
• UX Design
• UI Design
• Design Systems
• Third-Party Product Transition
• Customer Journey Mapping
• Information Architecture
• Interaction Design
• User Research
• Usability Testing
• Prototyping
• Figma
• Product Strategy
• Conversion Optimization
• Multi-Brand Design
• Accessibility
• AI-Enabled Design
• Engineering Collaboration
• Executive Communication
• Design Leadership

Primary Job Responsibilities:

• Establish the Product Design vision, operating model, standards, and decision-making practices that will guide multiple enterprise digital initiatives.
• Lead the transition of Product Design ownership from external partners to the internal Product and Technology organization while maintaining continuity across active products.
• Evaluate existing customer experiences, design assets, research, and usability gaps to determine what should be retained, improved, standardized, or redesigned.
• Personally lead end-to-end UX and UI design, including customer journeys, user flows, information architecture, wireframes, prototypes, high-fidelity interfaces, and interaction design.
• Establish user research and usability testing practices that continuously inform product priorities and design decisions.
• Create a multi-brand design system covering reusable components, design tokens, interaction patterns, accessibility requirements, and shared experience standards.
• Define the documentation, governance, and contribution practices required for Product Design and Engineering to maintain and expand the design system.
• Partner directly with Product and Engineering from discovery through implementation, design validation, quality assurance, and production delivery.
• Use customer behavior, product analytics, and business objectives to improve conversion, reduce abandonment, increase engagement, and strengthen customer self-service.
• Incorporate AI-assisted design into research synthesis, prototyping, design exploration, documentation, component creation, and design iteration.
• Present design priorities, customer insights, tradeoffs, and measurable outcomes to Product, Engineering, Data, Marketing, Brand, and executive stakeholders.
• Recruit, develop, and guide the internal Product Design team as the digital portfolio and design capability continue to mature.