Design Manager 👋

OakNorth is scaling fast. We need a Design Manager who can hold brand integrity and output velocity simultaneously, and who views AI as the operating model, not an add-on.

This is a hybrid manager + individual contributor (IC) role. You’ll lead a team of three based in Gurugram, India, while also shaping the craft through high-stakes work, conducting critiques, and driving brand consistency across all external touchpoints.

The role shapes OakNorth’s brand and visual expression every place the customer—prospect, saver, or partner—interacts before encountering the product: brand, website, campaigns, collateral, ads, sales enablement, and event design.

What You’ll Do 💼

Evolve OakNorth’s brand and visual system across global external touchpoints with:

• Raise design craft and consistency in typography, layout, imagery, and motion while maintaining OakNorth’s distinct identity.
• Turn brand principles into scalable assets—templates, AI-driven guidelines, and reusable components—to power teams.
• Fully own end-to-end design for the website: information architecture, page design, component library, and governance.
• Partner with Marketing and Product to optimise conversion, clarity, and drop-off rates in user journeys.
• Establish measurement & iteration loops: hypotheses, tests, learnings, and rollouts with clear KPIs.
• Drive high-impact design for:
  • Ads & landing pages
  • Social & sales enablement materials
  • Investor presentations
  • Event and environmental design
• Build scalable systems to maintain velocity without compromising quality (e.g., design kits, modules, reusable layouts).
• Ensure critical touchpoints ship on time, on-brand, with defined success metrics.
• Build an AI-enabled production pipeline: automate workflows while reducing review debt and enhancing throughput.
• Empower non-designers with templated systems and structured approval flows to dramatically increase asset velocity.
• Raise design impact across all surfaces through data-driven iteration.
• Lead a distributed design team (India-based): ops, hiring, growth, performance, and succession with high-quality work and clear handoffs.
• Define an operating model that supports asynchronous work across time zones, including structured critiques.
• Serve as a thought leader in OakNorth’s emerging design community, sharing standards, tooling, and craft across brand, product, and marketing.
• Drive efficiency by reducing low-value production through templates, AI systems, and clear focus models.