Head of Design

Company Description

Co-creation Hub is Africa’s leading technology innovation ecosystem builder on a mission to accelerate the application of science, technology and social capital for economic prosperity across Africa.

Our mandate is to build a formidable innovation ecosystem with a deeply rooted network, cultivating strategic partnerships and practical industry know-how that can support entrepreneurs and innovators in building thoughtful, relevant and scalable solutions. From our locations in Lagos, Abuja, Ijebu Ode (in Nigeria), Nairobi (Kenya) and Kigali (Rwanda), we have built a vibrant community of over 81,000 people and counting and have supported to a portfolio of over 120 early-stage ventures including Lifebank, Ushahidi, Riby, BudgIT, Stutern, Kopo Kopo, Sendy, mFarm, Wecyclers and many more.

Job Description

The Head of Design will use human-centered design (also referred to as design research or design thinking) research methodology to probe, assess and evaluate behaviours of targeted groups of people and then translating that knowledge into meaningful information and system designs to inform and improve programs.

The Head of Design creates, owns, and evangelizes the vision and purpose of Design practice at the CcHUB Design lab. This person will manage, grow, and mentor a team of designers, identify, and prioritize a stream of impactful work for them, and structure and deploy design teams against opportunities of real business value. Further, they will be responsible for creating an environment where Design can thrive in the enterprise, including leading the charge for new tools, new vendors, and new processes where appropriate.  S/he must be both the face and the heart of the practice both to their team and to the organization at large.

S/he will manage the team in user requirements analysis, task analysis, conceptual modelling, information architecture design, interaction design, usability testing, iterative design techniques, including observational studies, customer interviews and other forms of requirement discovery for the Design Lab projects.

Key Accountabilities

• Advocates for user-centered design-thinking methodology throughout the organization.
• Mentor associate and senior colleagues on the design process and its value.
• Build traction and toolkit for design methods to spread within the organization.
• Develop analytics for user experience metrics and reports on the success of UX improvements.
• Take a cross-channel, service-oriented view and ensure consistency in solutions.
• Collaborate across agile teams to ensure designs are feasible to implement and subsequently implemented accurately.
• Ensure solution in development aligns to company and product brand standards, and push to create or update these standards where appropriate.
• Follow all applicable company policy and procedures.
• Shares a responsibility to advance the CcHUB Design Lab mission.
• Empowers teams to build innovative and inspiring products that solve real problems for real people in society

Qualifications

Skills

• Inspired by leading disparate teams to value design and user-centricity.
• Demonstrates strong communication skills with the ability to articulate to clients/users the value of using design thinking to solve problems.
• Ability to produce high-quality creative output under quick turnaround times and strict deadlines in a “player-coach” format.
• Ideally, has a past mix of strategy, service, experience, and visual design skills.
• Long track record of leading qualitative research programs

Experience

• A degree in Design or Master’s in design preferred (Human Factors, Interaction Design, Information Science or HCI, Design, Design Strategy, Design Planning, Design Research, or related field).
• Understands the business domain and/or has worked in diverse industries and has a proven track record to pick up new industries context quickly.
• Experience building, coaching, and developing high-performing design teams.
• Has a long track record of successfully evangelizing design methodology in a corporate environment, ideally outside of the traditional bounds of design.
• Has developed a distinct point-of-view around design methodology.
• Clear and articulate speaker on design approaches and impact greatly preferred

Additional Information

What we offer

• Paid time off
• Healthcare coverage
• A highly collaborative team environment that will support your professional and personal growth
• Work alongside great talent.
• A culture of learning and innovation. 
• Opportunities for career growth and training.
• Interaction with industry leaders and forward-thinking people. 
• A chance to make a social difference.
• Overall fun company.