Director, Experience Design

Director, Experience Design

The Director, Experience Design will guide our team to create best-in-class user experiences by developing design solutions for complex and strategic initiatives, overseeing and mentoring design teams, and defining new approaches and processes for effective delivery.

Who you are:

• An entrepreneurial leader who proactively identifies new opportunities to add value, improve efficiency, and elevate outcomes
• An expert experience designer and human‑centered design advocate, passionate about delivering high‑quality, thoughtful experiences
• Comfortable setting direction and making trade-offs in ambiguous situations, balancing competing priorities and constraints
• Pragmatic and solution oriented – accountable for outcomes, not just outputs
• Adept at balancing strategic thinking with hands‑on creative direction
• Curious and inquisitive, seeking out business and user insights to push design solutions to the next level
• Open to experimentation and excited to take on new processes, ways of working, tools, and technologies
• Thrive in fast-paced, dynamic working environments

Responsibilities:

Experience design excellence

• Be a trusted design leader within the experience design team, and with leads across disciplines
• Provide oversight across parallel tracks of work, including across multiple clients or digital properties
• Consult on experience design strategy and design/research roadmaps for clients
• Define and uphold experience design standards and principles across accounts and teams
• Guide, mentor, and enable our team of experience designers, providing actionable feedback for craft and career development
• review and deliver key project outputs, oversee and manage quality, strategy, and overall approach

Client engagement

• Own and manage senior client relationships
• Serve as a senior strategic partner to clients, shaping long-term experience visions and roadmaps
• Lead client stakeholder communications, on project outputs, quality, strategy, and overall approach
• Executive presentations of experience strategy and design
• Plan and facilitate workshops and interviews with client stakeholders at all levels of seniority
• Advocate for the ways of working and conditions required to deliver effectively

Design operations and practice development

• Create processes and approaches to delivering new projects, including collaborating on project delivery plans, defining ways of working, and estimating effort required to deliver
• Contribute to proposals and pitches for new business, including approach, team structure, and estimated effort
• Stay up to date with industry trends and innovation, bringing new approaches and techniques to the team
• Facilitate and foster cross-disciplinary collaboration within Havas
• Ensure use of appropriate, modern design, collaboration, and research tools across team members and accounts (Figma, Miro, UserTesting.com, etc.)

Qualifications:

• Proven experience (5+ years) in senior leadership roles, preferably at digital agencies or consultancies
• Diverse portfolio of work showing ability to guide teams to successful design outcomes, including experience strategy/product vision development, marketing/content related projects, and complex, interaction-rich interfaces
• Exceptional leadership, mentorship, and team-building skills.
• Outstanding presentation and communication abilities, with the confidence to pitch ideas and represent the agency with executive stakeholders.
• Deep understanding of customer experience principles and how creativity drives business results
• Experience estimating project work effort and contributing to new business initiatives (e.g. RFP responses, proposal decks, etc.)

Additional Information

This role represents an active vacancy at Havas. You will be joining a collaborative, growth-oriented environment where ideas are encouraged and career development is supported. The base salary range for this position is 145K-165K with final compensation determined based on factors such as work location, skills, experience, and background. Havas uses artificial intelligence-enabled tools to support certain aspects of the recruitment process. All hiring decisions are made by our recruiting and hiring teams.

Why Join us?

We are deeply committed to investing in the professional development of our team members, providing ample opportunities to expand skills, take on diverse challenges, and contribute to high-impact projects. Our passion for what we do drives us. Joining our team means being part of a culture and organization that prioritizes growth, innovation, and the pursuit of excellence...not to mention you would make some pretty cool new friends!

Havas also offers a comprehensive benefits program, which includes medical, dental, wellness, life and disability insurance, RRSP plan and match, paid parental leave top-up, and paid time off.