Location: Johannesburg, South Africa | Hybrid
Employment Type: Full-Time | Permanent
Seniority: Senior
Industry: B2B | Financial & Professional Services | Marketing & Brand

WatersEdge Solutions is partnering with an established international business to find a Head of Design who can combine strategic brand leadership with hands-on creative delivery.

This is a senior role for someone who wants genuine ownership of how a business looks, sounds and shows up in the market. You’ll lead the visual identity and brand strategy while managing and developing a small design team and remaining close enough to the work to maintain an exceptional creative standard across every touchpoint.

About the Role

The Head of Design sits at the intersection of brand strategy, creative direction and hands-on design. You’ll own and evolve the brand system while ensuring that everything from a LinkedIn post or sales presentation through to major campaign collateral is consistent, buyer-focused and unmistakably on-brand.

You’ll lead two mid-weight Designers within a broader Marketing team of approximately 10 people, taking responsibility for workload allocation, quality control, mentoring, career development and design standards.

The scope is varied, spanning visual identity, sales enablement, partner content, campaigns, thought leadership, internal communications and brand governance. The successful candidate therefore needs to be equally comfortable setting the creative direction and getting involved in delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the overall brand system, including visual identity, voice and tonality, colour, typography and other design elements.

• Maintain and consistently apply the corporate identity framework across all brand touchpoints.

• Drive visual differentiation and competitive positioning within the market.

• Maintain brand voice, tonality and AI-prompting guidelines as practical, operational resources.

• Act as the final quality gate for flagship and external-facing creative.

• Manage and develop the design team, including workload allocation, mentoring, peer reviews, quality control and career progression.

• Set and maintain creative and delivery standards across the design function.

• Develop sales enablement collateral including battlecards, brochures, FAQs and training materials.

• Produce client-facing proposal and RFP content incorporating strong copy, visuals and team credentials.

• Develop QBR and modular sales training materials.

• Lead the redevelopment and ongoing maintenance of core brand collateral.

• Support thought-leadership content, articles, press releases, PR activity and industry reports.

• Develop messaging and creative for booths, conferences and major industry events.

• Oversee translation and localisation of key collateral while protecting brand and product conventions.

• Coordinate recurring marketing activities and brand asset updates.

• Manage external creative and production suppliers.

• Administer creative tooling, licensing and user access in collaboration with IT.

• Manage multiple concurrent creative and marketing workstreams without compromising brand consistency.

What You’ll Bring

• Degree or diploma in Design, Visual Communication or a related discipline.

• 5+ years’ experience in brand strategy, visual identity and/or design.

• Ideally, meaningful depth working with a single organisation or long-term brand rather than exclusively short-term agency projects.

• 1–2 years’ experience managing a design team.

• Advanced proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite or equivalent creative tools.

• Video editing capability.

• Strong proficiency with Microsoft Office, particularly PowerPoint and Word.

• Strong strategic brand thinking and the ability to translate business positioning into a coherent visual and verbal identity.

• Proven creative direction capability across digital, print, video and presentations.

• Strong stakeholder-management skills and confidence working with senior leadership, sales teams, technical specialists and external partners.

• Experience mentoring and developing creative professionals.

• Excellent attention to detail and a strong commitment to brand consistency.

• Ability to manage multiple projects and competing priorities in a fast-moving environment.

• A hands-on approach and genuine passion for both design and people development.

Nice to Have

• Experience within a B2B, financial services, professional services or similarly regulated environment.

• Working knowledge of AI-assisted content and design workflows.

• Experience with Monday.com.

• Figma experience.

• Canva experience.

• Experience working with sales enablement and partner-facing content.

• Exposure to PR, thought leadership and event creative.

What’s On Offer

This is an opportunity to take meaningful ownership of an established brand and influence how it evolves across multiple channels and audiences.

You’ll have the scope to set creative direction while remaining hands-on, lead and develop a small design team, and work closely with stakeholders across marketing, sales and executive leadership. The hybrid Johannesburg environment will suit someone who enjoys the combination of strategic thinking, creative execution and people leadership.

Company Culture

The team operates with direct, low-formality communication and expects senior people to take ownership. It combines creative and lateral thinkers with structured, stakeholder-focused team members, so the Head of Design needs to understand and develop different working styles.

The environment suits someone adaptable and passionate about design who can maintain brand discipline under pressure, enjoys developing people and has a genuine appetite for continued learning.

Please Note: If you have not been contacted within 10 working days, consider your application unsuccessful.