Head of Design & UX, U.S. Personal Banking

Brief Description of the Organization

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million client accounts and does business in nearly 160 countries and jurisdictions. We are leading the next era of global business by undertaking a massive effort to make sure we can manage the speeds and volumes of the digital age while helping our clients and customers address the challenges of an ever-evolving world.  We strive to earn and maintain our clients’ and the public’s trust by constantly adhering to the highest ethical standards and making a positive impact on the communities we serve.

U.S. Personal Banking (USPB) serves our home markets with the largest consumer wallet in the world and is building a purpose driven team to serve its diverse, digitally forward customers. USPB provides market leading banking, cards, lending, and investments products to its customers. We are looking for exceptional candidates who think digitally and differently, resolve problems in unconventional ways and strive to provide a remarkable experience for our customers.

Overview of the Role

As a Design & UX executive supporting our U.S. Personal Banking business line, you’ll lead a large team that design industry and market leading client solutions that are poised to exceed client expectations and push Citi as the brand leader. The role requires a hands-on, experienced, client obsessed and results oriented leader to drive strategic direction and execution of design across the business. You are adept in market trends, design best practices, and competitor insights, and how these factors impact our customers and our business results. You are passionate about building solutions that drive client loyalty, engagement and are relentless on simplification. You operate with the highest standards of integrity and have business strategic and financial acumen to understand the impact of decisions on economics. You know how to apply design thinking and agile product design and combine the art and science of design to create world class experiences, validating solutions through research and testing. Running effective design maintenance and operations with an eye on quality, analytics and ROI is part of the puzzle. The role is equal parts design engineer, artist, strategist, execution driver, and change agent, with a focus on marketing, product development, digital acquisition, onboarding, and servicing, and end to end service design. This senior leader will be responsible for defining and driving our long-term design vision and strategy, defining the client and colleague experiences across the spectrum of USPB platforms and products. The role will report directly to Citi’s Head of Design and UX, and will closely collaborate with business, product & engineering senior leaders to design and develop best in class client experiences and products. This executive will lead a diverse team of creative professionals based in our strategic technology sites (New York, Dallas).

Objective

The Citi Design & UX team is helping transform traditional corporate, commercial, and personal banking into the digital (human) age, scaling design as a critical strategic enabler for the firm. Our ambitious and rapidly growing team is taking over 200 years of Citi’s heritage and transforming it into an adaptable, client-focused, inclusive, and design-centric organization. We’re making banking more human, simple, and relevant, with modern cutting-edge products and services that are easy to get and use at the moment of need.

We're looking for a visionary “renaissance” leader with an entrepreneurial mindset and a high level of emotional intelligence, who has the experience of creating, communicating, and delivering a unifying vision; a senior innovator with exceptional technical, leadership, and communication abilities and ability to influence change at all levels of the organization. This individual will serve as a disrupter, elevating requirements to drive a global design strategy, and expand the scope and value of the design function across the organization. Developing and leading a team of creative professionals and building strong and collaborative relationships with senior leaders and key stakeholders to drive the vision forward is essential. An ideal candidate will be comfortable with not only leading and influencing but also diving into the most intricate of design details and rolling up her/his/their sleeves to guide and influence the work.

Key Function:

The User Experience Function Group Manager is an executive leadership role, with overall responsibility for all aspects of Design & UX for a significant business group or division. The User Experience executive partners with Product and Technology colleagues to create innovative and intuitive digital products that deliver best-in-class user experience and usability to our clients, both internally and externally. We undertake a wide spectrum of activities, from discovery and research, through definition, ideation and design, to the management of design systems and the delivery of interactive prototypes and high-fidelity designs to our development partners. The Design & UX group’s primary goal is to design products and solutions that are streamlined, intuitive, consistent, accessible, inclusive, great-looking, and easy-to-use, which perfectly suit (or even anticipate) our clients’ needs.

Priorities Include:

• Defines, manages, adapts, and communicates product and experience designs necessary for the USPB businesses, addressing all aspects of the customer lifecycle, including acquisition, service, growth capabilities, ensuring consistency in UI and UX across the ecosystem
• Partner with business, digital, technology and operations stakeholders to identify needs, validate pain points, and determine the high-level value proposition / business case for implementing innovative, relevant, and cost-effective design solutions. Deploy techniques such as Design Thinking, Service Design, current state analysis, data and analytics, and business case development to establish near and long-term design priorities. Conduct and incorporate qualitative and quantitative research and competitive analysis as required
• Align with and support our global client strategy, analytics and operations teams and relevant centers of excellence, networking and collaborating across the franchise to deliver the power of Citi’s global capabilities to our clients, accelerating change adoption and facilitating evolution of a client-obsessed workforce and expanding global product portfolio
• Establish routines and mechanisms to oversee and govern progress in achieving vision, strategy and simplification goals; inclusive of clearly defined metrics and milestones
• Strategize and collaborate with USPB business leaders to establish the design framework, blueprint, and experiences across client and colleague journeys, ensuring both business requirements and user experiences are optimized
• Build, lead, and evolve our next-generation digital design practice, aligned with business and brand needs and expectations, while driving a frictionless and delightful client experience
• Drive Design System development and adoption, deploying common UI components across Services ecosystems
• Develop approach to drive best-practice sharing and collaboration across business areas and design team along defined areas of future growth; provide support and guidance to partner as needed to ensure objectives are met
• Champion an inclusive and diverse global mindset and culture to attract a deep and diverse talent pool within the organization, as well as deliver inclusive products to the market
• Lead with human-centered and data-driven design principles, aligning with revenue, efficiency, and client experience business objectives
• Manage large team of employees, subcontractors, and agency relationships across locations to deliver on time and on budget and increase quality of design deliver, managing costs, risks, controls, and capacity forecasting.
• Lead large-scale programs to increase prevalence of design thinking and culture across our most strategic initiatives

Organizational Scope and Accountability

• Strong leadership skills, presence, and composure; can lead through influence / without formal authority
• Thinks Design first but quickly grasps and is conversant in business strategies with a particular focus on Digital and Technology based outcomes
• Innovative and curious, and readily able to think outside of the box, especially relative to disruptive technology
• Communicates effectively and impactfully to all levels of an organization, from front line client-facing staff to Board members
• Self-starter who brings high sense of urgency to assignments and goals
• Comfortable with ambiguity and change
• Passionate about improving a wide range of employee and client experiences
• Has strong project management skills, but deploys a flexible approach to meet the needs of a broad group of diverse stakeholders
• Balances analytical and creative abilities effectively and with context

Responsibilities:

• Overall responsibility for all aspects of UX for an Organization
• Promote UX as a key driver for the overall product and technology strategy for organization
• Build, develop and retain a high quality team, coaching and developing managers and senior designers effectively.
• Work as a highly effective "manager of managers" providing guidance and opportunities for junior managers to grow and thrive
• Provide close partnership for senior business stakeholders and development heads to deliver world-class experiences
• Budget and resource management, and overall program management for the group
• Create an effective team structure, engaging 3rd party partners if needed, to provide scalability and flexibility to cope with fluctuations in demand
• Establish governance to ensure quality and consistency of work, and a joined-up approach for all teams in the business group/division.
• Hands-on design and thought leadership with your teams, coaching, mentoring, and developing their design skills and practices to ensure the highest quality designs.
• Direct engagement with clients whenever necessary and possible
• Regular, transparent communication of status and metrics to management and stakeholders
• Continuous seeking of opportunities to make improvements to team efficiency and process
• Keep up to date with the latest UX practices, innovations and tools
• Ensure all designs comply with ADA/WCAG standards for accessibility
• Deliver on-time, identifying and managing risks to ensure timelines are met, and escalating where needed
• Identify and articulate design and technical conflicts between senior stakeholders and partners, and drive resolutions, always championing the user
• Evangelism to get broad and strong buy-in to the benefits of UX
• Contribute to the wider UX community of practice
• Work as a figurehead to promote Citi's UX capabilities and achievements externally to raise Citi's profile and attract top talent.
• Appropriately assess risk when business decisions are made, demonstrating particular consideration for the firm's reputation and safeguarding Citigroup, its clients and assets, by driving compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, adhering to Policy, applying sound ethical judgment regarding personal behavior, conduct and business practices, and escalating, managing and reporting control issues with transparency, as well as effectively supervise the activity of others and create accountability with those who fail to maintain these standards.

Organizational Scope and Accountability

• Strong leadership skills, presence, and composure; can lead through influence / without formal authority
• Thinks Design first but quickly grasps and is conversant in business strategies with a particular focus on Digital and Technology based outcomes
• Innovative and curious, and readily able to think outside of the box, especially relative to disruptive technology
• Communicates effectively and impactfully to all levels of an organization, from front line client-facing staff to Board members
• Self-starter who brings high sense of urgency to assignments and goals
• Comfortable with ambiguity and change
• Passionate about improving a wide range of employee and client experiences
• Has strong project management skills, but deploys a flexible approach to meet the needs of a broad group of diverse stakeholders
• Balances analytical and creative abilities effectively and with context

Qualifications:

• 15 years of experience leading design-led technology-enabled change projects / programs that crossed functional and business area siloes, and which incorporated process, technology, and organization change. Experience within the Financial Services or another regulated industry is preferred
• Deep expertise as a hands-on design leader working on complex products in a large organization, structuring, establishing, and leading multiple customer-centric engineering teams
• Experience in digital, client experience strategy and operating model transformation
• Deep experience in building client experience, persona development, client journey evolution development 
• Proven track record in leading transformation and change, and ability to materially change business trajectory
• Demonstrated ability to build internal relationships with broader stakeholders across a franchise to drive to common goals and outcomes with specific focus on connecting dots across global clusters and regions
• Effective leader in defining and presenting the strategies to C-level executives
• Ability to utilize available tools and resources to accomplish end goals
• Open, transparent, and highly collaborative leader who builds trusted relationships across teams and geographies
• Proven leadership skills and ability to work in a matrixed environment
• Strategic, analytical, and systematic thinker who consistently challenges the status quo and constructively challenges the team to drive change and continuous improvement
• Demonstrated track record of positively impacting organizations and transitioning work, processes, and employees to higher value business models
• Specific subject matter expertise regarding transformation and program management disciplines and a strong business understanding of the products and services Citi offers
• Exceptional communicator who loves working with people, confident communicating at all levels from an individual team to the entire enterprise
• The ability to succeed in a cross-matrixed organization that relies on building support in other groups 
• 10 years strong leadership of design teams
• Excellent time and project management skills
• Ability to partner directly with senior business stakeholders or clients, and “speak their language”
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills
• Strong skills in professional design tools e.g. Figma, Adobe Suite, Sketch, Invision, Axure
• Experience working with agile methodology
• Skilled at working with third party service providers
• Experience in affecting large culture change
• Strategic organization and service design experience
• Financial services knowledge or experience
• Practical knowledge of software development

Desired Skills:

• Vision and Design Strategy Definition
• Visual Design
• Strategic Roadmap Development
• Client Experience Focus
• Research and Analytics
• Software & Product Engineering
• Business Transformation
• Technology & Digital Thought Leadership
• Operating Model Design
• Quality Assurance
• Program Management & Governance
• Business Case Development
• Rapid Prototyping

Education:

• Bachelor’s/University degree, Master’s degree preferred