Job description

Three product verticals sit under this role, Upper & Luxury Residential, Commercial, Retail & Hospitality, and National Housing, Education & Civic, each serving D-Sell, D-Hold and Government clients with distinct design standards. You lead and govern the Design Management function across all three, translating commercial development briefs into high-quality, market-differentiated design outcomes. Design ambition gets balanced against commercial and programme constraints at every stage, with target customer, price point, unit mix, key features, timeline and budget all factored into the response. Stage gate reviews are chaired directly, with authority to approve outcomes or escalate to the GDS Committee. Relationships with CDOs and Development Management Directors are maintained as the primary executive interface between GDS Design Management and the three client groups, and recommendations get presented to the GDS Committee, GCEO and BU CEO. Escalations between Design Management and Development Management on brief alignment are resolved directly. Consistency within each typology is driven alongside innovation, with Design Innovation and Interior Design teams contributing shared knowledge frameworks and cross-vertical synergies. AI-assisted design tools and modular design thinking are overseen across teams. A high-performing multi-disciplinary design management team gets built, developed and retained, with performance goals, succession plans and capability roadmaps aligned to GDS strategy.