Head of Design - Home

About the Company

A large and growing home retail brand in the Middle East is seeking a Head of Design to lead their entire design team. With 200+ stores across the Gulf region, with a combined retail space of more than 5M square feet, they are an incredibly successful brand.

The Head of Design will lead a team of 12-15 designers specialising in a wide portfolio of products including furniture, household (dining, kitchen, lighting, bedding, soft accessories), garden and outdoors.

Head of Design – Home: Responsibilities:

• Setting the creative strategy: Identifying the market trends and setting the creative direction for the team across all categories
• Designing hard goods and accessories collection across various categories: Ensuring that your work aligns with the brand’s aesthetic and market needs. 
• Trend Research & Opportunity Identification: Deep expertise in researching, analysing, and identifying commercial trends in Hard Goods & Accessories. Skilled in recognising emerging styles that resonate with diverse customer profiles.
• Cross-Functional Teamwork: Close collaboration with buying and merchandising teams to build ranges that align with the brands’ style and pricing, ensuring each product meets market demands.
• Manufacturer Collaboration: Work collaboratively with manufacturers, guiding them through product development and ensuring design fidelity during production.
• Collaboration & Communication: Expertise in communicating ideas through mood boards and sketches/renders, transforming concepts into technical specs and drawings that brief manufacturers accurately and effectively.

Head of Design- Home: The Person:

• Category experience: Minimum 15 years experience of working within furniture retail mainly, with some experience around soft furnishings as well
• Leadership/management experience: Excellent team management skills, mentoring and directly junior/senior designers across categories
• Advanced CAD & Adobe Skills: Highly proficient in CAD software and the Adobe Creative Suite, utilising these tools to create precise technical drawings, visualisations, and digital designs for a range of projects.
• Strong Communication & Negotiation Abilities: Excellent communicator with the ability to influence and negotiate effectively, ensuring that design visions are understood and executed across all stages of the product development process.
• Range Building & Commercial Awareness: Accomplished in building balanced, commercially viable product ranges, while also pushing the boundaries with new, innovative designs. Ability to challenge existing norms and ensure products meet both customer expectations and business objectives.
• Collaboration & Cross-Functional Influence: A highly collaborative approach, working closely with buying, merchandising, and manufacturing teams to deliver on cohesive design looks. Effective in influencing internal teams and external partners to ensure seamless range development.
• Presentation Skills & Stakeholder Communication: Strong, polished presentation skills with proven experience in presenting ideas and designs to key stakeholders. Skilled in clearly articulating design concepts, range strategies, and product innovations in a compelling manner.
• Qualified & Passionate: Degree-qualified or equivalent in a related field, backed by years of hands-on experience in the industry. An inherent passion for Hard Goods and a commitment to driving innovation within the field.

About Dubai:

Welcome to Dubai, the expat capital of the world !  Dubai offers a great quality of life, with world class leisure, entertainment, shopping, culinary options. With the opportunity to earn tax free income, expats find this destination very lucrative from a financial point of view. Great international schools, nurseries, healthcare facilities are available to expats and their families. Our client will look after all your repatriation needs, sponsor you and your family’s visas, arrange for hotels, pick ups and help you settle down as you move countries.

If you would like a stint away from home in a safe and internationally focussed city for a few years, please apply in confidence.