Director, Chief of Staff - Experience Design

Overview

Director, Chief of Staff - Experience Design

The Experience Design team at Capital One is at the forefront of enriching our customers’ digital and physical experiences and we are passionate about creating memorable, meaningful product experiences that build the Capital One brand with humanity and drive business advantage and innovation. We champion a thriving environment of collaboration, authenticity and healthy critique, in which we honor diversity of thought, create a culture of belonging, and elevate one another. If you’re a creative innovator who embraces an environment where you can experiment, learn, and change banking for good, we’d love to hear from you. 

Role Expectations 

The Chief of Staff role is largely about relationships. The Chief of Staff is a connector for everyone in the design organization as well as our business partners and stakeholders, and operates as a strategic partner for the Design Leader and their Senior Leadership team. You’re great at balancing the big picture, thinking strategically while managing tactical execution, and recognizing overlaps in plans, processes, people, and many other facets of a functioning organization to drive efficiency and excellence. You have strong business acumen and understand how design drives business impact, and excel at both written and oral communications across all levels of seniority. You have access to people and data at all levels and disciplines and keep at least one ear and one eye open to the overall health of the organization while maintaining discretion at all times. 

As the Chief of Staff, your primary responsibility will be to enable a high performing Senior Leadership team and wider design organization in direct collaboration with design leadership and our business partners. This role includes oversight of initiatives where central coordination and aligning with partners across the line of business and the enterprise are key for well-managed delivery, including leadership team routines, large-format and executive meetings/events, recognition programs, performance management, team communications support, change management and strategy implementation.

What you’ll do:

• Serve as a trusted advisor, confidential thought partner, and act as a sounding board to the Design Leader and their Senior Leadership Team

• Develop and iterate management practices (Senior Leadership Team and Organization) to enable the transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of our organization

• Facilitate defining business priorities and drive goal setting effort for the organization, inclusive of cascading information through the organization

• Counseling leadership team on organizational design and change management

• Ensure the team’s time is focused on the highest leverage activities related to business priorities and impact

• Evangelizing the impact of design with business partners by embracing and advocating for an experience design mindset

• Managing business critical relationships on behalf of senior leadership, and representing senior leadership accordingly in non-executive meetings

• Prepare agendas, coordinate materials, facilitate management practices

• Shepherd Strategic Planning cycle (quarterly/annual)

• Coordinate regular business reviews of key experience investments and initiatives

• Engage in organizational design including headcount estimation, budgeting, and planning 

• Develop and execute the Communications Strategy 

• Be eyes and ears for the Senior Leadership team with respect to organizational health, focusing on morale, attrition, and unspoken feedback

• Manage difficult situations and hard conversations while showing a high level of discretion, professional maturity, resilience, and adaptability

• Handle oversight of special projects that don’t fit into traditional workstreams

Here are some of the expected competencies for this role:

• Operational Expertise: Leverage established expertise and leadership in operations to elevate the quality and maturity of the design practice at Capital One

• Leadership: Create conditions for a positive and inclusive team environment and set a vision for an inclusive, collaborative culture that makes associates throughout the organization feel valued and heard

• Human-Centered: Champion voices of both customers and partners, modeling the mindset that business and customer outcomes are not distinct but complementary, ultimately resulting in experiences that exceed baseline customer needs and expectations

• Business-Focused: Demonstrate expert knowledge of products, processes, our customers, competitors and industry market trends, applying relevant insights to shape how Design should engage and solve business challenges

• Problem-Solving: Structure ambiguous and unprecedented problems using a variety of qualitative and quantitative data and techniques to test hypotheses, generate insights and diagnose root causes and identify patterns

• Collaboration: Connect the dots across teams, portfolios, platforms and LOBs, bringing together partners and processes in ways that drive more coherent experiences, accelerate delivery and elevate the value of design 

• Communication: Present work across levels and job functions, modeling a strategic human-centered approach that integrates frameworks, data and research insights to make the complex accessible, influence senior stakeholders and achieve impactful results

The ideal candidate has a strong portfolio demonstrating your leadership, process, results and impact and is a self-starter that can work autonomously and can take initiative.  The candidate also is confident to champion unpopular ideas even with more senior leaders and has ability to navigate “white space” or ambiguous situations

Basic Qualifications:

• At least 8 years of experience in Strategy and Operations or Program Management

• At least 5 years of experience of building, leading and managing large cross functional initiatives and programs

• At least 3 years of experience building, implementing, and maintaining strategic plans for a large organization

Preferred Qualifications:

• Strong facilitation, negotiation and mediation skills

• Strong project management, organizational and detail orientation skills.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Ability to maintain discretion in handling highly sensitive issues

• Deep business acumen and experience with connecting design to business outcomes

• Strong at building and maintaining relationships that inspire confidence and build trust and support at all levels of the organization

• Familiarity with program management methodologies and tools

• Experience partnering with product managers, engineers, marketing and analytics leaders across multiple business lines to shape strategy, performance metrics, roadmaps and operating models

• Experience working collaboratively in large global organizations with multiple stakeholders and diverse communities

• Experience working directly with designers, researchers, and strategists

At this time, Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

McLean, VA: $269,600 - $307,700 for Sr. Director, Chief of Staff

New York, NY: $294,100 - $335,700 for Sr. Director, Chief of Staff

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate’s offer letter.

This role is also eligible to earn performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non discretionary depending on the plan.

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at theCapital One Careers website. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.

This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.

No agencies please. Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability/vet) committed to non-discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Capital One promotes a drug-free workplace. Capital One will consider for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23-A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City’s Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.

If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting at 1-800-304-9102 or via email at RecruitingAccommodation@capitalone.com. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.

For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to Careers@capitalone.com

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Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).