Head of Design (Remote - Work from Anywhere)

Position overview

As the Head of Design, you will lead our design organisation, owning the design quality of every customer journey end-to-end — how our client-facing touchpoints across product, web and more look, feel, and function at every step — in close partnership with Product, who own the journeys and priorities, and Marketing, who lead brand strategy and identity.

This is a broad executive mandate where you will own not only the craft of design but its measurable impact on the business. You will champion design excellence, build deep partnerships with Product and Marketing to ensure a single, cohesive experience from first impression to daily use, and grow a world-class remote design culture. Your mission is to translate complex financial and cryptocurrency concepts into a beautiful, cohesive, and trust-building experience — and to demonstrate, through outcomes, that great design is working.

Responsibilities

• Design Strategy and Vision. Define, champion, and execute the long-term design vision for Xapo's client-facing touchpoints across mobile and web — treating measurable user-experience quality, not just aesthetics, as the standard of success.
• Design Performance & Outcomes. Own the metrics that demonstrate design's business impact such as task-completion and speed in core journeys and design-system adoption, reporting on these quarterly at the executive level.
• Operational Leadership of the Design Function. Run design as a fully accountable business function, owning headcount planning, prioritisation, and delivery, so the organization scales predictably alongside Product and Engineering.
• Brand Partnership and Experience Continuity. Partner closely with Marketing, who lead Xapo's brand strategy and identity, to ensure that brand is expressed faithfully throughout the user journey — creating a seamless aesthetic and narrative transition from public campaigns to in-app transactional flows, with clear swimlanes and shared rituals between the two teams.
• UX Architecture and Flow Optimisation. Oversee user research and journey mapping to elevate the design and usability of complex regulatory, private banking, and crypto-native payment flows — working with Product, who own the journeys themselves, to reduce friction without compromising security.
• Design Systems and Operations. Scale and govern a unified design language and Figma system — co-developed with Marketing's brand team where the system touches brand expression — to drive velocity, consistency, and visual quality across product and web.
• Operationalised Research and Testing. Standardise a culture of data-informed design, embedding regular usability testing and customer discovery as a standard gate before handoff to ensure high-quality, validated releases.
• Cross-Functional Executive Collaboration. Work closely with Product and Engineering leadership so the design organisation is engaged early, bringing craft and usability expertise into strategic direction and product requirements from the earliest stages — and act as design's ambassador to Marketing, Compliance, and other key stakeholders.
• Responsible AI Design Governance. Partner with security and AI engineering teams to establish a safe, governed framework for utilising AI tools in asset creation and UX personalisation.
• Team Leadership and Culture. Recruit, mentor, and lead a remote, multi-disciplinary design organisation spanning Product Design, Research, and UX Writing, fostering a culture of craft, critique, and continuous growth.

Skills needed

• 10+ years of digital design experience, with at least 4+ years in an executive leadership role (Director/VP) managing multi-disciplinary design teams in a high-growth fintech, neobank, or digital asset platform.
• Broad creative fluency, with a strong portfolio demonstrating complex interactive product design executed to a high aesthetic standard, and a proven ability to work within and extend an established brand identity.
• Proven track record of improving key business and design metrics (conversion, NPS, task completion, and platform ratings) through design-led initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to resolve operational friction, streamline design workflows, and build high-trust partnerships with marketing, product, and engineering teams — particularly experience navigating shared ownership of brand between design and marketing functions.
• Deep knowledge of native mobile platform guidelines (iOS and Android) and modern Web standards, along with experience scaling enterprise-grade design systems.
• Strong familiarity with the unique UX and trust challenges in fintech, banking, and digital assets.
• Exceptional communication and executive storytelling skills, with the ability to clearly articulate the business value of design decisions to the C-suite and board.
• Operational, direct, and collaborative leadership style tailored for a fully remote, globally distributed environment.

Other requirements

• A dedicated workspace.
• A reliable internet connection with the fastest speed possible in your area.
• Alignment with Our Values and the Xapo Values-Driven Leadership principles.