Head of Design SLS SanlamConnect

What will you do?

The Design Lead is accountable for intermediary experience across SanlamConnect, SRS and Glacier, with specific ownership of experience on SanlamConnect’s intermediary digital platform.

The role leads the design capability responsible for shaping coherent, end‑to‑end intermediary experiences across journeys delivered by multiple teams. Working closely with product, technology, data, marketing and business stakeholders, the Design Lead ensures that design translates strategic intent into practical, usable solutions that materially improve intermediary efficiency, effectiveness and experience.

What will make you successful in this role?

The key responsibilities of the role include the following:

Craft & execution

• Use, apply and disseminate best‑practice design methodologies, tools and frameworks amongst design practitioners and teams to solve for, and design, effective intermediary experiences.
• Lead and contribute to the definition of interactions, journeys and services, taking into account intermediary needs, business objectives, technical considerations and design best practice.
• Drive and guide user research and usability testing activity to ensure validated design solutions, capturing insights and testing outcomes and packaging these for broader sharing and feedback.
• Interpret research and data to inform design direction and prioritisation, ensuring solutions are grounded in the real contexts in which intermediaries support their clients.
• Own and contribute to the delivery of UX, UI and interaction design outputs as agreed during performance contracting, ensuring quality, consistency and fitness for purpose.

Project and Team

• Collaborate across SanlamConnect, Sanlam Risk and Savings (SRS) and Glacier to identify strategic objectives and contribute to the definition of intermediary experience initiatives and focus areas, representing the role of design in achieving these objectives.
• Support SanlamConnect leadership to articulate and evangelise a clear intermediary experience vision and design approach.
• Build and lead a design capability able to deliver consistent, high‑quality intermediary experiences across journeys, channels and digital platforms
• Nurture design talent and skills, instilling strong design practices and creating a compelling employee proposition for designers.
• Create a productive, inclusive and vibrant design culture and community in SanlamConnect.
• Define, drive and act as custodian of design governance, processes, tools and templates to support everyday design activities.
• Manage the ongoing evolution of the intermediary design system and shared design assets.Create unified standards for delivering consistent and high‑quality intermediary experiences across multiple teams and initiatives.
• Stay informed of the competitive landscape and emerging best practices to continuously bring new and differentiated thinking into experience, service and product design.

Organisation

• Contribute to the broader transformation of SanlamConnect into a digitally enabled, experience‑led organisation. 
• Apply human‑centred design practices to understand intermediary needs, inform strategic planning and uncover opportunities to improve intermediary efficiency, effectiveness and experience. Represent Sanlam in the market as a custodian of experience and design quality, contributing to Sanlam’s reputation and stature as an innovator. 
• Act as an agent for collaboration across design, experience, product, channels, marketing and brand, and technology, bringing cross‑functional and holistic thinking to problem‑solving. 
• Support the SanlamConnect CIO and broader leadership team to shape creative and strategic thinking that frames strong end‑to‑end intermediary journeys, services and solutions.

Qualification and Experience

⦁    Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification in a related field. 
⦁    8-12 years’ experience in the discipline of Product Design across varied users, business problems, and devices. 
⦁    Experience in leading design teams in, and senior participation in designing products and services for Financial Services institutions.

Knowledge and Skills

⦁    Knowledge in management of design teams, and related operational efficiencies in ensuring optimal design quality and throughout, within agile environments
⦁    Knowledge in defining, disseminating and driving the application of user-centered design processes and practices to develop new products and services.
⦁    Knowledge of interaction models, flows and wireframes.
⦁    Knowledge of rapid prototyping methods, ranging from paper sketching to digital prototypes.
⦁    Understanding of contextual uses for experience maps, user journeys and service blueprints.  
⦁    Understanding of areas of specialization within the greater design landscape, including but not limited to Design Research, Visual Design, and Content Design. 
⦁    High dexterity in speed and quality with the tools of your trade. 
⦁    Knowledge of and curiosity about technology and its impact on design solutions. 
⦁    Knowledge of the process in conducting user research and capturing user insights using qualitative and quantitative methods

Core Competencies

⦁    Communicates effectively
⦁    Decision quality
⦁    Analytical thinking
⦁    Cultivates innovation
⦁    Optimize work processes
⦁    Plans and aligns
⦁    Concern for accuracy
⦁    Customer focus
⦁    Balances stakeholders
⦁    Collaborates
⦁    Drives engagement
⦁    Drives results
⦁    Nimble learning
⦁    Being resilient

Build a successful career with us

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping  our employees to realise their worth. Through its five business clusters – Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz, Santam, as well as MiWay and the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers. 

Our commitment to transformation

The Sanlam Group is committed to transformation and embracing diversity, and our employment equity plan and targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. This commitment is what drives us to achieve a diverse workplace with employment equity as a key goal to create an inclusive workforce, representative of the demographics of our society as well as people with disabilities.