Head of Design Centre of Excellence

Head of Design Centre of Excellence, Global Design Team, IWPB

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Join the Global Design team at HSBC within International Wealth and Premier Banking (IWPB), where we create best-in-class experiences that make a meaningful difference in customers' lives. We bring together strategic design thinking, cross-channel expertise and a global perspective to shape how affluent customers engage with HSBC around the world.

We’re looking for a driven, strategic and inspiring design leader to head up our Design Centre of Excellence (COE) — a critical enabler for how we scale design, build future-facing capability, and deliver impact across the bank. This is a unique opportunity to influence how a global design organisation operates, evolves and thrives.

As Head of the Design COE, you’ll work closely with Design Leadership and business stakeholders to shape the way we resource, organise and empower our design teams worldwide. From capacity planning to capability building, standards to strategy — you’ll play a central role in ensuring design has the environment, tools and talent to succeed at scale.

As an HSBC employee in the UK, you will have access to tailored professional development opportunities and a competitive pay and benefits package. This includes private healthcare for all UK-based employees, enhanced maternity and adoption pay and support when you return to work, and a contributory pension scheme with a generous employer contribution.

This is a high-impact, high-visibility role where you’ll be part of a dynamic team driving bold change — with a clear mandate to shape the future of design at HSBC.

In this role, you will:

• Lead the Centre of Excellence: Define the vision, structure, and strategic role of the Design CoE, ensuring it delivers lasting value to both the organisation and our customers.
• Empower design at scale: Lead global capacity planning, resourcing strategy, and capability development using data-driven insight to ensure the right teams are solving the right problems at the right time.
• Drive operational excellence: Build and continuously improve the systems, standards, and governance that enable consistent, high-quality design delivery across teams and regions.
• Champion collaboration and alignment: Act as a key partner across product, technology, and business advocating for design and enabling stronger ways of working across functions.
• Elevate craft and culture: Create an environment where design talent can grow and thrive, with clear progression, effective onboarding, targeted development, and shared definitions of success.

To be successful in this role you should meet the following requirements:

• Deep expertise in design leadership and operations: Demonstrated experience leading large-scale or multi-region design functions, with a strong foundation in design operations, strategic planning, and programme delivery.
• A systems thinker with analytical rigour: Able to zoom out to identify structural opportunities, while also diving deep into data to inform resourcing, capacity, and operational decisions.
• Hands-on understanding of design disciplines: You recognise what excellence looks like across UX, UI, research, and service design, and understand how to support and scale these disciplines effectively.
• A people-first leadership style: A skilled coach and mentor with a passion for building inclusive, high-performing teams and fostering strong cross-functional collaboration.
• Strong commercial and stakeholder acumen: A natural collaborator and communicator, able to influence senior stakeholders and clearly articulate how design drives customer and business outcomes.

Opening a world of opportunity. You’ll achieve more when you join HSBC.

At HSBC we look to enable our employees to better balance their work / life priorities and have the flexibility required to meet challenging needs as they progress through different life stages. Where possible we will consider the following flexible working options: part-time working, job sharing, term-time working, and working from home and staggered hours. If in considering a role with HSBC, you have a need for some flexibility in your working arrangements please discuss this with the recruitment team in the early stages of the application process.

We believe that being open to a range of perspectives and cultures is vital for our business. We work hard to ensure our diverse and inclusive workplace reflects the communities we serve. We want everyone to achieve their potential – regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or age. If you have a different way of seeing the world, we are interested in hearing from you.

HSBC is committed to being an inclusive employer and providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process for all. We will provide reasonable adjustments to remove any disadvantage to you being considered for this role. We are proud members of the Disability Confident Scheme and will offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum criteria for the role. If you would like to receive any information in a different way or would like us to do anything differently to help you apply for our roles, please contact our Recruitment Helpdesk: Email: [email protected] Telephone: +44 2078328500. Within the workplace you will have access to various employee resource groups which aim to promote and achieve a healthy work / life balance and support our diversity ambitions. HSBC has processes in place to avoid nepotism. This means we will avoid circumstances in which the appearance or possibility of conflicts of interest may exist within the hiring process.