Head Of Digital Design

Head of Digital Design (UI / UX), Dublin

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Date: 25 Jun 2025

Location: Dublin, IE, IE

Company: Allied Irish Bank

Location/Office Policy: Remote & Office

• Do you have a genuine passion for Digital and Customer-Centric design?
• Would you like the opportunity to drive impact at scale, interacting with over 2M Digital customers every day?
• Are you a multi-tasker with the skills to deliver transformational change, meeting rapidly changing customer and market needs?

What is the Role:

Aligned with AIB’s customer first strategic priority, the Head of Digital Design will develop and drive AIB’s strategic user interface and experience strategy across our digital channels, delivering market leading customer experiences. They will champion customer-centred design best practices, shaping future digital products and services that are even more inclusive, accessible, and aligned with the changing needs of AIB's diverse and growing base of over 2M digital customers

Why would someone want to join your team?

This is an opportunity to work with one of the Ireland’s true digital market leaders, meeting the needs of over 2M Irish Customers daily. Your designs will be crucial in building their trust, keeping them safe, driving loyalty, while delivering real commercial outcomes.

Key accountabilities;

• Design Leadership & Strategy: Design, develop, implement and communicate a clear market leading UI and UX strategy and vision that aligns with AIB’s broader digital strategy, ensuring all digital touchpoints reflect best-in-class experience design. Use market leading thought leadership capability and key design changes across the industry and other key sectors, to refine this vision, manifesting its value and strategic alignment to ELT and other senior stakeholders
• People and practice leadership: Lead, grow, and mentor a cross-functional team of UI / UX designers, researchers, and design leads; building a high-performing and inclusive design culture acting as a thought leader on experience design for the broader business and building the capability and successors across the team. Key member of the Customer and Digital Experience SMT
• Customer-centred design operations: Establish and scale design systems, governance models, and standardised design processes that improve quality, drive delivery efficiency, and ensure consistency across AIB’s digital portfolio. In addition, pro-actively collaborate with key stakeholders across the Bank to optimise the ways of working as they develop and manage their backlogs
• Collaboration & stakeholder engagement: Partner with senior leaders across the Bank including Product, Technology, Retail, CCO, Data, Compliance, and Marketing to embed design thinking into agile product delivery and business decision-making. In addition, ensure experience design is foundational in key strategic initiatives which interface with the customer.
• Delivery: Lead teams to drive key design backlogs and prioritisation with the delivery teams to effect transformational level change at a programme and agile tribe level
• Voice of the customer: Represent the customers, integratingqualitative and quantitative insights to inform design decisions, proactively identify user pain points, and champion the needs of underserved customer segments.
• Innovation & future design: Drive innovation and thought leadership by exploring emerging technologies (e.g., AI, biometrics), accessibility advances, and evolving digital behaviours to future-proof design capabilities.
• Brand & experience alignment: accountable for ensuring all digital design is consistent with AIB’s brand strategy, tone of voice, and inclusive design standards, delivering coherent multi-platform user journeys.
• Governance & compliance: Uphold compliance with relevant regulatory frameworks, accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG 2.2), and ethical design principles across all customer interactions

What you Will Bring ;

• Broad market experience and a deep customer empathy, to support and grow our diverse base of over 2M Digital customers, improving their experience and conversion rates, with a design which is robust and easy to use
• An eye for detail and innovative thinking, to ensure customer-centric design principles are recognised, valued and upheld, and that key design priorities are addressed in line with the complex regulatory, security, and business requirements.
• Outcome focused, continually balancing short-term delivery pressures with long-term strategic design capability building to maximise value and drive progress.
• The experience and management required to build and develop AIB’s internal design capability.
• A transformational mindset, comfortable leading cultural and operational change across multiple stakeholders and departments to embed a truly customer design centric culture, leveraging modern scale practices and technologies.
• Evidence based decisioning, leveraging customer insights, metrics and feedback to help prioritise areas for improvement and to drive commercial outcomes.

Why Work for AIB:

We are committed to offering our colleagues choice and flexibility in how we work and live and our hybrid working model enables our people to balance their time between working from home and their designated office, subject to their role, the needs of our customers and business requirements.

Some of our benefits include;

• Market leading Pension Scheme
• Healthcare Scheme
• Variable Pay
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Family leave options
• Two volunteer days per year

Please click here for further information about AIB’s PACT – Our Commitment to You.

Key Capabilities

• Market, Competitor and Customer Knowledge - Minimum 15 years’ experience in UX/UI/Product Design, including 5+ years in senior leadership roles within a relevant digital-first organisation(s).
• Customer Value Proposition Development - Demonstrable experience in defining market leading Customer centric UX/UI strategy at scale
• Develops & Empowers - Proven success in building and leading high performing multi-disciplinary design teams.
• Vision & Purpose Led - A track record in cultivating innovation, creating new and faster ways for the organisation to be successful, with the business acumen to identify business needs, evaluate emerging technology trends, and advance potential solutions in UI / UX which meet our customer’s needs.
• Drives Progress - Proven Experience of navigating complex (matrix) organization structures, building partnerships with senior stakeholders and working collaboratively to deliver on shared objectives.
• End to End Thinking - Strong, concise and effective written and oral communications skills; enabling you to communicate and coordinate with individuals across all levels of a financial institution to ensure solutions are fully considered.

If you are not sure about your suitability based on any aspects of the role advertised, we encourage you to please contact the Recruiter for this role, Tim Stokes, at careers@aib.ie for a conversation.

AIB is an equal opportunities employer, and we pride ourselves on being the first bank in Ireland to receive the Investors in Diversity Gold Standard accreditation from the Irish Centre for Diversity. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees. Should you have a reasonable accommodation request please email the Talent Acquisition team at careers@aib.ie

Disclaimer:

Unsolicited CV’s sent to AIB by Recruitment Agencies will not be accepted for this position. AIB operates a direct sourcing model and where agency assistance is required, the Talent Acquisition team will engage directly with our recruitment partners.

Application deadline : 18th July 2025

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