Head of Design

THE MOMENT Firstsource is at an inflection point. We are a global services company with 36,000 people, serving 500 marquee clients across healthcare, banking & financial services, tech, media, telecom, retail and utilities — and we are in the middle of a deliberate, ambitious transformation. We are not layering AI onto existing processes. We are reimagining what it means for intelligence to operate at scale. This ambition needs to be seen as much as it needs to be said. Every piece of communication we put into the world — a pitch deck, a campaign, a capability document, a LinkedIn post, a client report — either reinforces or undermines the story we are telling. We need someone who takes that seriously and builds a function that delivers on it, consistently and at scale.

THE ROLE The Head of Design owns the visual output of Firstsource. Not the theory of it — the actual delivery. The expectation is for you to build the design system and run it. You will lead the design function end-to-end: the people, the systems, the process, the tools, the standards, and the day-to-day output that represents the company across every channel and context. This is a role for someone who is deeply skilled at their craft, operationally sharp, and genuinely motivated by the challenge of building a design system and function that runs well, produces well, and earns the trust of the business. You will report into the global head of brand, and operate as a true partner to marketing, brand, sales, and communications — making sure design is never the bottleneck and always the difference.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN Building the Design System

• Core Visual Elements (Foundations)
• Logo Guidelines: Rules covering primary and secondary logo variations, minimum sizing, clear space, and improper usage (like stretching or incorrect backgrounds).
• Color Palette: Exact color formulas—including HEX, RGB, CMYK, and Pantone—defining primary, secondary, and accent colors for both text and backgrounds.
• Typography: Specific font families, weights, and hierarchies (e.g., H1, H2, body) for print and digital to preserve readability and tone.
• Imagery and Illustration: Directives on photography styles, filters, and custom graphic assets that reflect the brand's personality.
• Iconography: A standardized set of icons, including stroke weights, grid sizes, and style rules (e.g., filled vs. outline).
• Operational & Digital Components
• UI Components: Reusable interface elements like buttons, input fields, dropdowns, and cards, often bridging the gap between design software (e.g., Figma) and development (CSS).
• Spacing and Grid Systems: Layout rules—often using an 8-point grid or pixel bases—that determine margins, padding, and alignment to maintain structural consistency.

Design Function Leadership

• Build, mentor, and scale a high-performing design team — setting clear standards, cultivating independent thinking, and creating space for the team to grow beyond day-to-day execution.
• Establish design systems and a design operating model: how work flows, how quality is reviewed, how timelines are held, and how creative decisions get made at pace without sacrificing integrity.
• Enable the design team to independently interpret briefs and translate them into thoughtful visual storytelling that elevates the narrative — without requiring repeated stakeholder direction or multiple creative references.

Technology and AI Integration

• Lead the adoption of tools and technologies that make the design function faster and more capable — including AI-powered design, image generation, layout automation, and production tooling.
• Build workflows that use AI and automation intelligently: handling repetitive production tasks, accelerating first drafts, and freeing the team to focus on work that requires real creative judgment.
• Develop a clear point of view on where AI accelerates without compromising craft, and build processes that let the team work faster without thinking less.
• Stay current on what tools are available, evaluate them critically, and bring in the ones that genuinely improve how the team operates.

Brand & Visual Identity

• Own and steward the Firstsource visual identity system — typography, color, iconography, illustration, photography direction, and motion principles — ensuring coherence across every medium and market.
• Own the Firstsource visual identity as a living system — knowing when it needs to evolve, when it needs to be enforced, and how to keep it practical for the teams applying it every day.
• Develop and maintain design systems that are specific enough to be useful and clear enough to be followed without a designer in the room.
• Proactively audit design output across the business to spot drift and maintain consistency — especially as more content is produced by non-design teams.
• Translate brand strategy into a living system that is scalable, team-proof, and AI-production-ready.

Communications & Content Design

• Direct the design of all corporate communications — town halls, leadership presentations, internal newsletters, investor materials, and executive storytelling.
• Own the visual language of content marketing: thought leadership, campaign assets, infographics, event collateral, whitepapers, and video.
• Work with writers and strategists to develop content formats that are as intelligent as they are beautiful — built for specific audiences, contexts, and channels.

Digital & Channel Design

• Own the design layer across all owned digital channels: website, landing pages, microsites, email, social media, and digital campaigns — ensuring visual coherence and experience quality.
• Partner with digital, tech, and content teams to bring UX/UI thinking to internal platforms, client portals, and operational tools where experience is a competitive lever.
• Oversee design QA across paid media — display, social ads, and programmatic — ensuring brand consistency and creative effectiveness.

WHAT YOU BRING Design Expertise

• 12+ years of design experience, with at least 4 in a senior leadership or head-of-design capacity.
• A deep, multi-disciplinary design foundation spanning brand identity, communications design, digital/UX design, and marketing production.
• Strong command of the science and craft of design — visual hierarchy, grid systems, typography, color theory, motion, and how design works differently across print, screen, and motion contexts.
• A portfolio that demonstrates both the strategic and the executional: big-picture brand thinking alongside meticulous attention to detail at the output level.
• Fluent in Powerpoint presentation design, social media creatives; graphic and brand design
• Experience in Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Canva, a DAM platform, and AI design tools

Leadership & Collaboration

• Experience building and mentoring design teams — with a track record of developing talent, not just directing it.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills: you can navigate a room full of senior executives, translate their instincts into briefs, push back when needed, and bring people with you.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and moving fast — able to set priorities, triage competing demands, and keep standards high under real-world constraints.

Strategic & Commercial Acumen

• Understanding of how design functions within a B2B enterprise context — the rhythms of sales cycles, the weight of brand trust, and the commercial value of consistent experience.
• Ability to connect design decisions to business outcomes and communicate that connection clearly to non-design audiences.
• Experience working across global, multicultural markets is a strong advantage.

AI Fluency

• Hands-on experience with AI-powered design and creative tools — not just awareness of them, but active integration into your practice.
• A genuine curiosity about where AI is taking the design profession, and a considered perspective on how to embrace its capabilities without losing what makes design human.
• Ability to lead a team through the transition to AI-augmented workflows in a way that builds confidence rather than anxiety.

Process & Systems Thinking

• Experience designing and implementing end-to-end creative processes: briefing, ideation, review, production, and delivery.
• Skilled at building design systems and template libraries that scale across teams and geographies.
• Familiarity with project management and creative operations tooling — and a philosophy for how to run a high-output design function without bureaucracy getting in the way of creativity.