Practice Lead: Product Design

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Old Mutual is a firm believer in the African opportunity and our diverse talent reflects this.

Job Description

As the Practice Lead for Product Design, the individual is accountable for the strength, maturity, and effectiveness of the product experience design capability across GRiD, and holds the overall Digital C.I. for the group. This includes UX, UI, and content design as an integrated component of product experiences, delivered through multi disciplinary collaboration with product, proposition, market insights, innovation, customer experience, technology, and content teams.

The role establishes and governs the methods, standards, tools, and capability frameworks that enable high quality, consistent, and compliant product experiences across the design value chain. This includes ensuring that AI enabled design and content tools are responsibly and effectively integrated into design ways of work, skills development, and quality frameworks.

The Practice Lead operates at a practice and capability level, enabling and uplifting delivery teams through standards, coaching, governance, and community, rather than assuming direct line management or delivery ownership.

They establish a community for the practice, allowing both practitioners and non-practitioners to learn and contribute to the furtherance of product design within Old Mutual. They evaluate the performance of the practice and support governance as it applies to standards for its execution.

Ultimately, they build a model for the development of the people, processes and tools of product design, and enable its adoption and continuous improvement, towards business and customer value generation.

Practice Leadership

• Develop and manage the strategy for product experience design as a capability, ensuring alignment to business strategy, customer needs, and regulatory context.
• Provide thought leadership on the evolution of product, content, and experience design practices, informed by emerging trends, technologies (including AI), and industry best practice.
• Develop and maintain policies, frameworks, and governance models for product and content design in alignment with the broader design value chain and Design Centre of Excellence (CoE).
• Own and manage the maturity of the product design practice against agreed maturity models, ensuring continuous improvement and measurable uplift.
• Use data, insight, and qualitative feedback to assess the effectiveness and impact of the practice, informing prioritisation and improvement initiatives.
• Champion the practice across the Group, building sponsorship, advocacy, and adoption through structured change and engagement approaches.

Ways‑of‑Work & Standards

• Define and govern the methods, standards, tools, and techniques used to execute product and content design across the design value chain, including:
  • Design Strategy
  • Solution and Proposition Innovation
  • Architectural Design
  • Design Implementation
  • Continuous Improvement
• Establish content design principles, standards, and frameworks that ensure clarity, usability, accessibility, brand consistency, and regulatory compliance across product experiences.
• Ensure product and content design approaches are aligned to organisational strategy, operating models, and delivery environments, working closely with Product Owners, Agile CoE, Customer Experience, Technology, Research, Design Strategy, Architecture, and Design System teams.
• Define practical playbooks, guardrails, and patterns that enable repeatable, high‑quality execution by delivery teams, without assuming delivery ownership.
• Develop and maintain contribution models that allow practitioners to evolve and improve methods and standards collaboratively through the design community.
• Leads the creation, management and governance of the Digital C.I. for the group.

AI‑Enabled Design & Content Practices

• Define how AI‑enabled tools and techniques are incorporated into product and content design workflows across the design value chain.
• Establish standards, guardrails, and ethical principles for the responsible use of AI in design and content creation, ensuring alignment with brand, customer, legal, and regulatory expectations.
• Partner with Design Operations, Technology, and relevant governance forums to evaluate, enable, and optimise AI‑assisted design and content tools at a practice level.
• Ensure that AI capability is embedded into practice maturity models, skills development frameworks, and quality assurance processes.

Skills Development & Capability Uplift

• Define capability frameworks and career pathways for product and content design practitioners, aligned to organisational role structures and maturity expectations.
• Curate structured skills development programmes that identify capability gaps and support continuous learning across design and adjacent partner roles.
• Work closely with Learning & Development partners, including the Design Academy, to embed product design, content design, and AI‑enabled design competencies into formal learning tracks.
• Enable capability uplift through coaching models, communities of practice, knowledge‑sharing initiatives, and structured learning interventions.
• Establish mechanisms to track skills development progress, practice maturity, and the impact of capability initiatives.

Operations Support & Governance

• Work with Design Operations to ensure that the operating model, tooling, and governance required to execute product and content design are integrated and supported.
• Contribute to decisions regarding design and content tooling, including evaluation, acquisition, optimisation, and lifecycle management.
• Support workforce planning and resourcing decisions related to product and content design capability, without assuming line management accountability.
• Establish and govern quality assurance frameworks for product and content design, executed through delivery and portfolio leadership structures.
• Define measurement and reporting frameworks that assess quality, consistency, and impact of design outcomes across portfolios.
• Prepare and present regular updates on practice health, maturity, and key initiatives to design and business leadership.

Product Design Leadership & Enablement

• Support Design Delivery Leadership to correctly scope, plan, and execute product and content design efforts across the Group.
• Provide senior‑level design expertise where required on high‑impact or complex initiatives, particularly relating to design strategy, standards, and architectures.
• Establish and embed quality management and assurance models that ensure consistent, high‑quality outcomes across delivery portfolios.
• Coach and mentor practitioners and partner roles across the organisation to strengthen product and content design capability and culture.

Working Experience & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human‑Computer Interaction, Content Design, Digital Media, Marketing, Technology, Business, or a related field.
  (Honours or Master’s degree advantageous.)
• 8+ years’ experience in product, UX, or content design roles, with at least 3–5 years operating at a senior or practice‑level leadership capacity.
• Proven experience building, governing, or maturing design or content practices within complex, regulated, omni‑channel environments.
• Experience working in Agile, cross‑functional product environments alongside product, technology, and business stakeholders.
• Demonstrated track record of enabling high‑quality design outcomes at scale through standards, frameworks, and capability uplift rather than direct delivery ownership.

Technical Skills

• Deep understanding of product, UX, UI, and content design principles and methodologies.
• Strong knowledge of content design, information architecture, accessibility, usability, and brand expression within digital products.
• Experience defining and governing design systems, standards, and quality frameworks.
• Working knowledge of AI‑enabled design and content tools, and their application within responsible, enterprise contexts.
• Strong facilitation, coaching, and community‑building skills.
• Experience designing learning frameworks, career paths, and skills development programmes.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, including the ability to influence senior and executive audiences.

Skills

Adaptive Thinking, Business Requirements Analysis, Commercial Acumen, Creative Design, Current State Analysis, Customer Analytics, Market Analysis, Negotiation, Oral Communications, Presentation Preparations, Presentation Techniques, Presenting Solutions, Product Development, Strategic Planning, User Experience (UX) Design

Competencies

Education

NQF Level 9 – Masters

Closing Date

15 May 2026 , 23:59

The appointment will be made from the designated group in line with the Employment Equity Plan of Old Mutual South Africa and the specific business unit in question.

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