Sr. General Manager - Design

We are looking for a General Manager / Senior General Manager - Design to lead our commercial and co-working interior design function. This is a senior leadership role for a design professional with 10+ years of experience who can combine strong design thinking with business understanding, technical expertise, stakeholder management, and team leadership. You will own the design quality, design standards, consultant ecosystem, and capability of the design team, while working closely with business and operations leaders to develop workplace solutions that are customer-centric, scalable, commercially viable, and execution-ready. Experience in co-working, flexible workplaces, corporate, or enterprise office environments is highly preferred.

The candidate will have responsibilities across the following functions:

Design Leadership:

• Own the overall design vision, quality, and standards across commercial and co-working projects.
• Lead projects from concept to design development, technical documentation, and execution, ensuring design intent is maintained throughout.
• Establish a strong design language and continuously evolve the workplace design offering and product standards.
• Challenge conventional thinking and bring a strong understanding of workplace trends, customer expectations, functionality, flexibility, and experience-led design.
• Balance design quality, commercial objectives, cost, timelines, scalability, and execution feasibility.

Business and Stakeholder Leadership:

• Act as the senior design interface for business leaders, clients, internal stakeholders, external design consultants, MEP consultants, contractors, and other project partners.
• Build and sustain strong relationships with clients and internal business stakeholders.
• Understand business objectives and translate them into clear design strategies and solutions.
• Influence key decisions by bringing together design, business, operational, and technical perspectives.
• Represent the design function in critical business and project discussions.

Design Delivery and Technical Excellence:

• Provide strategic oversight while remaining sufficiently hands-on to guide critical design decisions and resolve complex issues.
• Ensure projects achieve a consistently high standard of design development, detailing, coordination, and technical documentation.
• Drive resolution of complex design and technical challenges without compromising the project's design agenda.
• Lead the development of documentation standards, design processes, templates, guidelines, and quality benchmarks that enable consistent delivery at scale.
• Build a robust review and governance process to ensure design and documentation quality across projects.

Team and Capability Building:

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing design organisation capable of delivering multiple projects at scale.
• Mentor designers and managers, identify high-potential talent, and build the next generation of design leaders.
• Define clear roles, expectations, performance standards, and development paths for the team.
• Create a culture of ownership, accountability, design excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Strengthen internal design capabilities and determine when and how to leverage external consultants effectively.

Product and Continuous Improvement:

• Work closely with business and operations teams to identify opportunities to improve the workplace product and customer experience.
• Convert project learnings and customer insights into improvements in design standards, specifications, layouts, materials, and delivery processes.
• Develop solutions that are flexible, adaptable, repeatable, and commercially sustainable.
• Continuously improve the base design offering to enable faster, better, and more consistent project delivery.

Requirements:

• B. Arch. or Interior Design qualification from a recognised architecture/design institution.
• 10+ years of relevant professional experience, with substantial experience in commercial office, corporate, enterprise, co-working, or flexible workplace interiors.
• Proven experience in leading design teams and managing multiple projects/stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to build design teams, establish processes, and raise design and documentation standards.
• Strong understanding of interior architecture, detailing, materials, construction, MEP coordination, and execution.
• Strong 3D visualisation, design presentation, and communication skills.
• Proficiency in AutoCAD, PowerPoint, Photoshop, and relevant 3D visualisation/design tools.
• Strong commercial understanding with the ability to make sound decisions around cost, timelines, scalability, and execution.
• Excellent leadership, communication, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Strong client-facing presence and the ability to influence senior stakeholders and lead critical design conversations.

Expectations:

Success in this role is not just about delivering individual projects.

It is about building a design function that consistently delivers exceptional workplaces at scale.

You will be successful when:

• Design quality is consistently high across projects.
• The design team is stronger, more capable, and increasingly self-sufficient.
• Design and documentation standards are clear and scalable.
• Stakeholders trust the design function to solve complex business and project challenges.
• The workplace product continuously improves through real project and customer insights.
• Projects are delivered with the right balance of design excellence, commercial discipline, speed, and execution quality.