Design Manager

Company Description

This role is for a client which is a Startup / Small Enterprise based in Gurugram.

Role Description

The ideal candidate will be responsible for planning, coordinating, and implementing projects within the decided-upon budget, timeline, and scope. They will also effectively monitor and present project updates to relevant stakeholders, clients, or project team members.

Your job will entail the following broad deliverables:

• Project management
• Business Development
• Support services

You will work under and report directly to the Business Manager

Project Management-

• Schedule and manage the project with the client team regularly.
• Gather creative briefs from the client and supervise as well as oversee their execution by the design team.
• Deliver project through strategy and design team assigned to the project.
• Managing project planning to completion and client communication for a wide variety of projects - both simple and complex and large and small - independently or as part of a team.
• Participate and assist the team in creating presentations
• Coordinate between all teams to work seamlessly
• Bring a fresh point of view to our client's challenges and ensure the brand image is always ahead of the curve in terms of knowledge, expertise and insight
• Participate and contribute towards Strategy and concept directions and creativity to meet the end goal of a successful project delivered in time at high standards.
• Create weekly reports with your Business manager to the CEO.
• Gather project status, develop mitigation strategy and hold weekly meetings with the team with the Business manager.
• With high client satisfaction and good relationship management, increase scope and billing or acquire additional projects.
• Ensure billing and payment cycles are maintained as per schedule. Work closely with the Accounts Department to deliver the same.

Business Development-

• Marketing:
   A large part of Business Development happens through marketing. This function will require you to strategize on how to market to get the maximum impact. Besides overall strategy, the task will involve making a quarter-wise calendar programme, breaking it down into how each vertical gets promoted to designing the communication and delivering it across various channels.
• Solicitation of new businesses:
   with the business manager. Being a key driver behind the process of winning new work, creating opportunities and organizing and making pitch meetings. This would broadly involve handling new business communication, creating opportunities, designing and creating strategy of approach, planning bespoke proposal and process making, and sales initiatives for different verticals.
• Client acquisition:
   This will involve interacting with a client prospect, understanding the brief or requirement, business development with strategy pitches, creating a scope of work and timesheet and creating a detailed proposal. Interact with client prospects and bag the project.
• Newsletter:
   The task will also involve strategizing the newsletter structure, and planning and delivering the same on a monthly basis.
• Design website:
   Coordinate and manage content
• Awards:
   Shortlist relevant national and international awards where the company should participate in, prepare budgets, design, and deliver the entries.
• Anthony Brand:
   Create a strategy and plan in fructifying the same. This will include, Jury members, Talks, Lectures, workshops, etc.
• For the work above, you will work along with the Business Manager. Also, report to her for planning, progress reporting and delivery. You will also work with the strategy, content and design team to deliver various aspects required. You will assist the Business Manager in creating formal weekly reports to the CEO.

Support Services-

• Support HR: As part of your involvement with teams and clients, you will be called upon to conduct interviews and coordinate on induction-related support and manage programme around it.
• Support Administration as and when required in context to projects, facilitating teams, organizing transport/tickets, and meeting clients.
• The company time to time organizes FORUM and mini-conferences at the studio or online. You will need to organize and manage such events along with the Business Manager with support from the rest of the team.

Ideal Candidate

• Strong human relations skills
• Strong business acumen in project planning and management
• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience + post-graduation/master's degree is a plus
• Strong verbal, written, and organizational skills
• Minimum 6-8 years of Project management experience in similar organizations/similar fields
• Should have managed 4-5 designers directly under them, reporting to them.
• Client-facing experience for design and creative projects is essential, with the ability to take creative briefs from clients and manage delivery with designers.
• Should have worked in design studios or agencies managing design projects.

Mandatory

• Strong Design Manager, Art Director or Creative Director profile, with good experience in Project Management
• Mandatory (Experience 1) – Must have 6+ YOE in delivering Branding or Product / UI,UX Design projects for mutliple clients
• Mandatory (Experience 2) – Must have 2+ yrs of team lead experience (design team of 3+ designers)
• Mandatory (Skills 1) – Should also expertise in handling multiple parallel projects
• Mandatory (Skills 2) – Must have strong client management and business development skills, including taking creative briefs, strategy pitching, scope/proposal creation, and project and client acquisition.
• Mandatory (Skills 3) – Should have experience in Project management: scheduling, planning, budgeting, billing cycles, reporting, and seamless coordination across design, strategy, accounts, and content teams.
• Mandatory (Skills 4) – Expertise in graphic design and design strategy with the ability to guide and review creative output to meet the output as per the brand standards is a must
• Mandatory (Company) – Design studios, UI/UX agencies, Advertising agencies, etc.