Product Design Practice Lead

**You’re only human.**

It’s a strange thing to say, because us humans are capable of incredible things. And at Medibank, we know our greatest potential lies in the people who work with us.

We strive to make real, fundamental change, driven by a simple purpose: to create the best health and wellbeing for all of Australia.

**Enterprise Digital**

We are building an expert team to deliver best in class solutions for our customers. Our mission is to “Create delightful experiences that help our customers achieve better health”.

**The Role**:
The Product Design Practice Lead**provides leadership to the overarching design practice and experience strategy across Medibank's digital ecosystem. This role is responsible for fostering cross-functional collaboration between business areas to deliver cohesive, customer-centric experiences aligned with Medibank's strategic objectives and brand vision. As the practice leader for Medibank's product design professionals, this role establishes best practices, career frameworks, and professional development pathways for product design chapter leads embedded within different business areas. The position serves as the strategic connector between design, product, technology, and business stakeholders to ensure digital solutions meet customer needs while delivering business outcomes.

This role provides senior-level design leadership, championing customer advocacy, establishing governance frameworks, and building organisational design maturity to position Medibank as a leader in digital health experiences.

**The Responsibilities**:

- Develop and evolve Medibank's overarching digital experience strategy in collaboration with business area leaders, ensuring alignment with corporate strategy, brand vision, and customer experience priorities.
- Establish cross-functional governance models to maintain strategic alignment and design consistency across business units while enabling appropriate autonomy within each area.
- Provide strategic leadership and mentorship to Product design chapter leads across business areas to ensure cohesion and quality of experience across Medibank.
- Champion accessibility and inclusivity as a core design principle, establishing standards and accountability mechanisms across business areas.
- Represent design at the executive level, articulating the value of customer-centred design and securing appropriate resourcing and Medibank support.
- Advocate for customer-centred approaches across Medibank, promoting a culture where design thinking is valued as a strategic discipline.
- Collaborate on development, rollout and on-going iteration of a comprehensive research strategy that enables sharing of customer insights across business areas while addressing specific domain needs.
- Coordinate research planning across business units to identify opportunities for shared studies and prevent duplication of efforts.
- Partner with customer experience, analytics, and data science teams to develop a holistic view of customer behaviour and needs across touchpoints.
- Facilitate cross-functional insight generation sessions to help business leaders identify opportunities from research findings.
- Collaborate with Design and Research operations to establish and maintain Medibank's design practice model, including role definitions, career pathways, capability frameworks, and growth models for designers across the Medibank.
- Lead the recruitment, development, and performance management of product design chapter leads, building a high-performing leadership team.
- Foster a culture of craft excellence, continuous learning, and professional development across the design practice.
- Co-establish design rituals, critique processes, and quality standards that enable consistency while respecting domain-specific needs.
- Mentor and coach design leaders, helping them develop both design expertise and leadership capabilities.
- Negotiate resource allocation and investment priorities to ensure appropriate design capacity across business areas.
- Manage overall design headcount, budget allocation, and resource planning across business areas.
- Develop and track metrics that demonstrate the business impact and value of design activities.
- Lead design community initiatives to build cohesion and knowledge sharing across business areas.
- Co-coordinate vendor strategy for design services and tooling, establishing preferred partnerships and governance models.

**About You**
- BA/BS degree in Design, Business, or a related field; Masters/MBA degree preferred.
- 10+ years of experience in design, digital product development, or customer experience roles with at least 7+ years in senior leadership positions.
- Proven experience building and scaling design practices across complex organisations with multiple business units.
- Demonstrated success in driving organisational change and increasing design maturity.
- Strong executive presence with the ability to influence executive-level stakeho