Job Description

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Northern Trust has a unique opening for a Sr Director, Head of Experience Design for our Wealth Management business. We’re looking for a seasoned digital leader with experience managing teams and leading human-centered design.

As the Sr Director, you will identify opportunities for greater client impact and uncover insights within digital and service experiences. You will work closely with business and technology leaders at multiple levels and ensure the performance and results of the team. You will be accountable for the user experience strategy, research processes, practices, engagement model, and mentorship of the team.

You will maintain a standard of quality for design and research. Empowering a UX designers and design researchers to act as empathetic representations of our clients and champion a deep understanding of user needs to inform business decisions. You will look across the portfolio to identify opportunities for greater client impact and harmonious experiences.

This role reports to the Head of Experience Design & Research, a division of Corporate and Digital Strategy.

About Experience Design & Research

Experience Design & Research is a multidisciplinary design and research team dedicated to delivering innovative, differentiated, and exceptional experiences for clients, prospects, and partners by demonstrating a deep understanding of their needs.

We are committed to growing and supporting a diverse team, with a collaborative environment that provides educational and career growth opportunities. 

You can learn more about design at Northern Trust on our website > https://www.northerntrust.com/united-states/about-us/design

Key Responsibilities

Delivering Experience Vision. Collaborates closely with key leaders to continuously refine and evolve the client and partner experience across platforms and journeys. Ensures that experience design  and research are embedded in the right spaces across channels to deliver differentiated experiences based on business priorities.

Recruiting, Hiring and Motivating Top Talent. Identifies key top talent (internal and external), provides growth opportunities for team members, and uses inspiration inside and outside of financial services to ensure new, innovative solutions.

Encouraging a Collaborative, Inclusive and Open Design Culture. Offers direct, but kind feedback, promotes continuous learning, and creates a diverse, inclusive team.  Demonstrates the team’s cultural values in their actions every day.

Establishing Process and Practices. In collaboration with broader Experience Design and Research team, sets operational best practices, supports design system standards and tooling to allow the team to operative as effectively as possible.

Championing Experience Design for Wealth Management. Acts as the voice of design inside and outside the business unit, sharing work, showing what good looks like, evangelizing successes and articulating how design supports the business vision.

Establishing Best Practices in Design Research. Ensures that the user voice is represented in product design by weaving both exploratory and usability design thinking research methods as well as quantitative insights from marketing and other sources into delivery teams.

Connecting the Dots Within and Across Business Units. Encourages consistent and efficient design. Facilitates and promotes sharing across the design team and other Business Units.

Enforce Experience Principles. Builds on enterprise experience principles and ensures that that they are appropriately interpreted through the team’s work and external design resources adopt Northern Trust design standards and principles.

Requirements

At least 15 years of experience leading design teams and incorporating human-centered design into product definition and delivery
Ability to work closely with senior business stakeholders and/or product owners to align a broad set of stakeholders around the definition of success
Experience working with a cross-functional team in a large-scale software development lifecycle, preferably in an agile environment.
Experience managing a team of 10 or more individuals directly and directly.
Excellent oral communication, written communication, presentation, and facilitation skills - comfortable presenting to executive leadership.
A bachelor's degree in design, business, or related field (Master’s is preferred) While experience within the financial industry is preferred, it is not required.