Design Manager, Wellness

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Design Manager, Wellness Company: Haleon Location: Warren, NJ, United States Job Type: FULL_TIME Category: Brand Design & Strategy / Operations Date Posted: 2026-05-11 Experience Level: 10+ years

🚀 Role Summary

• This role serves as a senior strategic creative leader within Haleon's Wellness category, focusing on end-to-end visual brand experience and category-wide design vision.
• It involves defining and evolving brand expression systems, creating distinctive brand assets, and ensuring a cohesive, human-centered consumer experience across omnichannel environments.
• The position requires cross-functional orchestration, influencing senior leaders in insights, R&D, marketing, digital, and innovation to drive business growth and brand love through remarkable design.
• It is a critical role for stewarding brand equity, managing creative governance, and fostering a culture of design thinking and innovation within the organization.

📝 Enhancement Note: While the job title is "Design Manager," the responsibilities and requirements strongly suggest a role that interfaces heavily with operations through brand system implementation, cross-functional process management, and ensuring consistent execution of design strategies across various touchpoints. This role will require strong operational oversight to translate creative vision into tangible, scalable brand experiences.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic creative vision and visual brand experience for an entire category portfolio, defining identity systems and design frameworks.
• Develop and evolve category-wide visual brand strategies, ensuring each brand within the portfolio maintains distinctiveness, meaning, and growing equity over time.
• Create and steward new distinctive brand assets, packaging principles, experience guidelines, and visual languages that elevate relevance and differentiation.
• Design and direct end-to-end consumer and healthcare professional experiences across omnichannel environments, including packaging, digital, retail, and experiential platforms.
• Serve as the primary creative and design lead for category/product teams, inspiring collaboration and elevating the creative bar internally and with external agency partners.
• Partner cross-functionally with insights, data strategy, R&D, marketing, technology, and product leaders to bring breakthrough design ideas to life.
• Influence upstream decision-making through design thought leadership and the translation of consumer-driven insights into actionable creative strategies.
• Contribute to the ideation of new value propositions, innovation platforms, and experiential concepts by bringing external inspiration (cultural trends, design futures, human behavior) into Haleon.
• Define the creative standards and brand rules that guide execution partners and agencies, ensuring consistent and intentional brand building across all activations.
• Inspire a culture of design thinking, creativity, experimentation, and strategic craftsmanship across the broader organization.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities emphasize strategic creative leadership but also include significant operational components like "stewarding brand assets," "defining creative standards," and "orchestrating end-to-end consumer experiences." This implies a need for robust process management and cross-functional alignment, typical of operations-focused roles.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While not explicitly stated, a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Graphic Design, Visual Communication, Industrial Design, or a related field is typically expected for a role of this seniority.

Experience: 10+ years of experience in visual design, creative design management, or design leadership roles within agency or client-side environments.

Required Skills:

• Expertise in Branding, Design Systems, and Innovation Design.
• Experience with Adobe Creative Suite (CC); proficiency in 3D, CAD, motion graphics, or digital experience design is a bonus.
• Proven experience in FMCG/healthcare design leadership roles.
• Strong proficiency in design thinking, human-centered design principles, and applying insights to creative strategy.
• Understanding of global design culture and modern design practices across various industries.
• Strategic and tactical knowledge of how Design drives brand equity, business value, and portfolio growth.
• Cross-disciplinary design experience, including brand identity, structural packaging, digital, Point of Sale (POS), advertising, and other brand touchpoints.
• Proven track record in creating, launching, and scaling distinctive brand assets and comprehensive visual systems.
• Strong design communication skills, with the ability to articulate creative decisions through consumer and business impact.
• A strong portfolio showcasing omnichannel brand system design and breakthrough creative work.
• Ability to influence, inspire, and lead through design, demonstrating intellectual curiosity and hands-on capability when needed.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience managing category-level budgets, which involves significant operational and financial oversight.

📝 Enhancement Note: The required skills emphasize a blend of creative expertise and strategic thinking, which are foundational for operationalizing design strategies. The mention of "scaling distinctive brand assets and complete visual systems" and "strategic + tactical knowledge of how Design drives brand equity, business value, and portfolio growth" directly points to the operational execution of design initiatives.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• A robust portfolio is essential, showcasing a strong track record in omnichannel brand system design and breakthrough creative work.
• Demonstrate experience in creating, launching, and scaling distinctive brand assets and complete visual systems that have driven business value.
• Include case studies that highlight the strategic thinking behind design decisions and their measurable impact on brand equity, consumer delight, and business growth.
• Showcase an understanding of how design translates across various touchpoints, including packaging, digital interfaces, retail environments, and POS materials.
• Provide examples of how human-centered design principles and design thinking methodologies were applied to solve complex brand challenges.

Process Documentation:

• Candidates should be prepared to discuss their process for developing and implementing design systems, including how they ensure consistency and scalability across a portfolio.
• Ability to articulate the methodology for translating insights into design strategies and then into actionable creative briefs for internal teams and agency partners.
• Demonstrate experience in establishing and managing creative governance frameworks to ensure brand integrity and operational efficiency in execution.
• Showcase how they have managed the integration of design across various functions (R&D, Marketing, Digital, Innovation) to ensure seamless consumer experiences.

📝 Enhancement Note: For a role focused on brand systems and cross-functional influence, the portfolio must go beyond mere aesthetic presentation. It needs to demonstrate a structured approach to design operations: how creative visions are translated into executable brand frameworks, how consistency is maintained through processes, and how design impact is measured and reported.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: $142,078 - $195,356 USD annually + bonus. This range is competitive for a senior design leadership role in the Warren, NJ area, reflecting the extensive experience and strategic responsibilities required.

Benefits:

• Generous 401(k) plan with company contributions.
• Tuition reimbursement programs to support continuous learning and professional development.
• Six months of paid parental leave for new parents.
• Comprehensive healthcare programs, with Haleon covering the majority of medical coverage costs for employees and their families from day one.
• Opportunity to receive a discretionary bonus based on key business performance achievements and other incentive/recognition programs.

Working Hours: The role is full-time, typically around 40 hours per week, with a hybrid work model requiring 3 days per week in the Warren, NJ office.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range provided is a strong indicator of the role's strategic importance and the expected level of operational expertise. The benefits package is comprehensive, supporting both professional growth and personal well-being, which are key considerations for attracting and retaining senior talent in design and operations roles.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Consumer Healthcare / Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Haleon operates in a highly competitive and regulated market, where brand perception, consumer trust, and product efficacy are paramount. This industry context demands meticulous attention to detail in all aspects of brand presentation and consumer engagement.

Company Size: Haleon is a large, global consumer healthcare company. This scale implies complex organizational structures, diverse market needs, and significant operational infrastructure to manage. For a Design Manager, this means navigating a matrixed environment and influencing across multiple business units and geographies.

Founded: Haleon was established as a standalone company relatively recently (spun off from GSK in 2022), but its heritage brands have long histories. This "new company, old brands" dynamic suggests a culture that balances innovation and agility with the established trust and equity of its portfolio.

Team Structure:

• The Design Manager reports to the US Director of Design, indicating a clear reporting line within a dedicated design function.
• This role will likely be part of a broader Marketing or Brand team, collaborating closely with Brand Managers, Insights Specialists, R&D teams, Digital Marketers, and Innovation leads.
• Cross-functional collaboration is a core element, requiring the Design Manager to act as a bridge between creative vision and business objectives, ensuring design is integrated into all stages of product development and marketing.

Methodology:

• Data Analysis and Insights: The role requires translating consumer insights and data strategy into actionable design direction, emphasizing a data-driven approach to creative development.
• Workflow Planning and Optimization: The Design Manager is responsible for creating and managing design frameworks and creative governance to streamline the design process across multiple brands and touchpoints, ensuring efficiency and consistency.
• Automation and Efficiency: While not explicitly stated, leveraging design systems and clear guidelines contributes to automation in execution, allowing for faster deployment of creative assets and reducing inconsistencies.

Company Website: [Company URL provided in input, but not explicitly used in the output as per instructions. Assuming it's https://www.haleon.com/]

📝 Enhancement Note: Haleon's focus on "purpose-driven" and "everyday health with humanity" suggests a culture that values impact and empathy. For a Design Manager, this means aligning creative output with these core values, ensuring that design not only looks good but also serves a meaningful purpose for consumers. The operational aspect comes from translating these values into consistent brand experiences.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is positioned at a senior management level. It requires not just creative execution but strategic leadership, portfolio management, and significant cross-functional influence. The "Manager" title, combined with 10+ years of experience, signifies a career stage where individuals are expected to define strategy, mentor others, and drive significant business outcomes through their specialized expertise. In an operations context, this means managing the "design operations" function for an entire category.

Reporting Structure: The role reports to the US Director of Design. This implies a clear hierarchy within the design function, with opportunities for collaboration and mentorship from a more senior design leader. The Design Manager will be responsible for guiding the creative output of multiple brands within their assigned category, acting as the primary design strategist for those brands.

Operations Impact: The impact of this role is substantial. By defining and maintaining robust visual brand strategies and design systems, the Design Manager directly influences:

• Brand Equity & Recognition: Ensuring brands are distinctive, memorable, and trusted by consumers.
• Consumer Engagement & Loyalty: Creating emotionally resonant experiences that drive brand love and repeat purchase.
• Go-to-Market Efficiency: Providing clear, scalable design frameworks that enable faster, more consistent execution by marketing and agency partners.
• Innovation Success: Ensuring new products and initiatives are visually aligned with brand strategy, increasing their likelihood of market acceptance.
• Business Growth: Ultimately contributing to category and brand sales performance through effective brand building.

Growth Opportunities:

• Leadership Advancement: Potential to move into roles like Senior Design Manager, Director of Design, or VP of Design, potentially overseeing larger portfolios or broader design functions.
• Specialization & Deepening Expertise: Opportunity to become a subject matter expert in specific areas of design operations, such as advanced design systems, digital experience design within regulated industries, or global brand harmonization.
• Cross-Functional Mobility: Experience gained in influencing and collaborating across R&D, Marketing, and Digital could open doors to broader brand strategy, product development, or even GTM operations roles.
• Mentorship & Team Development: Opportunity to mentor junior designers and agency partners, contributing to the development of design talent within Haleon.

📝 Enhancement Note: The growth path here is not just about creative accolades but about operationalizing design excellence at scale. Success in this role will be measured by the efficiency and effectiveness of the design systems and processes implemented, showcasing a strong link to operational management.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: Hybrid model, requiring 3 days per week in the Warren, NJ office. This suggests a modern workplace designed to foster collaboration, innovation, and team cohesion, while also allowing for focused work and flexibility.

Office Location(s): Warren, NJ. This location provides access to a talent pool in the greater New York metropolitan area, with established infrastructure for corporate operations.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Environment: The hybrid model and emphasis on cross-functional collaboration suggest an office environment equipped for team meetings, brainstorming sessions, and interactive work. Expect shared workspaces, meeting rooms, and potentially creative labs or studios.
• Operations Tools and Technology: While specific tools are detailed in another section, the workspace will likely be equipped with the necessary technology (high-speed internet, displays, collaborative software) to support design work, digital presentations, and remote collaboration.
• Operations Team Interaction: The 3-day in-office requirement is designed to facilitate meaningful in-person interactions with design leadership, marketing peers, R&D partners, and other key stakeholders, fostering stronger working relationships and more effective operational alignment.

Work Schedule: Full-time, with a hybrid schedule. This implies a degree of flexibility in managing one's work week, balancing in-office collaboration days with remote workdays. This flexibility is crucial for designers who often require uninterrupted blocks of time for deep creative work, while still needing to be present for critical operational meetings and team syncs.

📝 Enhancement Note: The hybrid nature of the role underscores a modern approach to work that balances operational efficiency (in-office collaboration) with employee well-being and productivity (remote focus time). This is a common trend in operations-focused roles that require both deep analytical work and frequent stakeholder engagement.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: Likely involves a review of your resume and portfolio by a recruiter or hiring manager to assess basic qualifications and creative fit.
• Portfolio Review & Presentation: A significant part of the process will be a dedicated session where you present your portfolio. Expect to walk through 2-3 key projects, detailing your strategic approach, design process, role in execution, and the impact of your work. Be prepared to discuss how you managed design systems and cross-functional collaboration.
• Cross-Functional Interviews: You will likely meet with key stakeholders from Marketing, R&D, Insights, and potentially Digital teams. These interviews will assess your ability to collaborate, understand diverse business needs, and translate design thinking into solutions that meet business objectives operationally.
• Design Leadership Interview: An interview with the US Director of Design and potentially other senior design leaders to evaluate your strategic vision, leadership potential, and alignment with Haleon's design culture and operational standards.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate Strategically: Select projects that best demonstrate your expertise in brand systems, omnichannel design, and driving business impact. Prioritize work that showcases your ability to operationalize design for scale and consistency.
• Tell a Story: For each project, clearly articulate the business challenge, your role, the strategic approach, the design process (emphasizing operational considerations), the execution, and the measurable results (brand equity lift, consumer impact, efficiency gains).
• Highlight Systemic Thinking: Emphasize how you've built or managed design systems, brand guidelines, and repeatable processes to ensure consistency and efficiency across multiple brands or touchpoints.
• Quantify Impact: Whenever possible, use data and metrics to demonstrate the effectiveness of your design solutions. Focus on outcomes like brand growth, increased engagement, improved conversion rates, or operational efficiencies gained.
• Showcase Collaboration: Include examples of how you've worked effectively with cross-functional teams and agency partners, highlighting your ability to influence and integrate design into broader business operations.

Challenge Preparation:

• Design System Exercise: You might be asked to critique an existing brand's visual system or propose improvements for a hypothetical scenario, focusing on scalability, consistency, and operational efficiency.
• Creative Brief Interpretation: You could be given a brief and asked to outline your strategic approach, key design considerations, and how you'd manage the execution process.
• Scenario-Based Questions: Prepare for questions about managing competing priorities, influencing stakeholders, or resolving design conflicts within a cross-functional team.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on "operational efficiency in execution" and "measurable results" in portfolio review tips is crucial. This role requires candidates to demonstrate not just creative talent but the ability to manage design as a strategic operational function.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Adobe Creative Suite (CC): Essential for graphic design, illustration, layout, and image manipulation. Proficiency is a baseline requirement.
• Design System Tools: Familiarity with tools used for creating and managing design systems, such as Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD, is highly probable, especially for maintaining consistency across a portfolio.
• 3D/CAD Software: Mentioned as a bonus, indicating potential use for structural packaging design or product visualization.
• Motion Graphics/Animation Software: Mentioned as a bonus, suggesting potential application in digital content, advertising, or experiential design.
• Digital Experience Platforms: Experience with tools used for digital design, prototyping, and potentially content management systems (CMS) or digital asset management (DAM) systems.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Brand Equity Tracking Tools: Understanding how to interpret data from brand tracking studies to inform design strategy and measure impact.
• Consumer Insight Platforms: Familiarity with tools that provide consumer research data and analytics to guide human-centered design.
• Performance Analytics: Ability to interpret metrics related to digital engagement, conversion rates, and campaign performance to assess design effectiveness.

CRM & Automation:

• While not directly a CRM role, understanding how design assets are managed within Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems or how they integrate into marketing automation workflows could be beneficial for ensuring operational consistency.

📝 Enhancement Note: The tools listed, especially Adobe CC and potentially design system platforms, are critical for executing design strategies. However, the "bonus" mentions of 3D, CAD, and motion graphics suggest a broad scope of design application. For operations, understanding how these tools feed into production workflows and asset management is key.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Purpose-Driven: A core value at Haleon, meaning design should contribute to "better everyday health with humanity." This translates to creating designs that are empathetic, inclusive, and genuinely helpful to consumers.
• Human-Centered: Design decisions must be rooted in deep human understanding and consumer insights, ensuring that brands resonate emotionally and practically with their target audiences.
• Agile & Performance-Focused: The organization champions an agile, high-performance culture. This means design processes should be efficient, adaptable, and focused on delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Collaboration & Inclusion: Haleon values diverse backgrounds and views. Design must be inclusive, reflecting the diverse communities served, and fostered through strong, empathetic collaboration.
• Innovation & Curiosity: Encouraging curiosity and creativity is vital, pushing boundaries while remaining rooted in human insights and strategic objectives.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-Functional Integration: Design is not siloed; it's deeply integrated with Marketing, R&D, Insights, and Digital. The collaboration style is partnership-oriented, where design acts as a strategic contributor and facilitator across these functions.
• Process Review Culture: Expect a culture of constructive feedback and iterative refinement, where design solutions are openly discussed and improved upon by various stakeholders.
• Knowledge Sharing: A commitment to sharing best practices, design trends, and learnings across teams to elevate the overall capability and efficiency of design operations within the company.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on "humanity," "purpose," and "agility" in Haleon's values directly translates into how design operations should function. Design must be executed with a clear understanding of its impact on people and business, requiring efficient processes that allow for both empathy and speed.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Balancing Brand Distinctiveness with Category Cohesion: Ensuring each brand within the portfolio has a unique identity while maintaining a cohesive overall category visual system requires careful strategic management and operational discipline.
• Navigating Complex Stakeholder Needs: Influencing senior leaders across diverse functions (Marketing, R&D, Legal, etc.), each with their own priorities and perspectives, demands strong communication and negotiation skills.
• Driving Innovation in a Regulated Industry: Bringing fresh, breakthrough creative ideas to life while adhering to strict regulatory requirements in the healthcare sector presents a significant operational and creative challenge.
• Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Omnichannel Touchpoints: Ensuring a seamless and consistent brand experience across a multitude of platforms (packaging, digital, retail, social) requires robust design systems and rigorous execution oversight.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Operations Skill Advancement: Deepen expertise in design operations, including advanced design system management, workflow optimization, and cross-functional process integration.
• Industry Conferences & Certifications: Opportunities to attend leading design and branding conferences, and potentially pursue certifications in areas like user experience (UX) or change management.
• Mentorship & Leadership Development: Access to mentorship from senior design leaders and opportunities to develop leadership capabilities through managing projects, guiding teams, and influencing strategic decisions.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges highlight the operational complexities of managing design at scale within a large, regulated organization. Overcoming these requires strong process management and strategic execution, which are core to operations roles. The growth opportunities directly align with developing these operational leadership skills.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• How would you define and operationalize a design system for a new category within Haleon, ensuring it balances brand distinctiveness with overall portfolio cohesion? (Focus on process, governance, scalability, and cross-functional adoption.)
• Describe a time you had to influence senior stakeholders from R&D or Marketing to adopt a new design direction. What was your strategy, and how did you measure the impact of your design's adoption? (Highlight communication, data-driven persuasion, and outcome-focused metrics.)
• Imagine a key brand in the Wellness category is experiencing declining consumer engagement. How would you use design thinking and your expertise in brand systems to diagnose the problem and propose actionable solutions? (Emphasize problem-solving methodology, consumer insight translation, and strategic design application.)

Company & Culture Questions:

• How do Haleon's values – particularly "purpose-driven" and "humanity" – influence your approach to design strategy and execution? (Connect your personal values and design philosophy to the company's mission.)
• Describe your experience working in a hybrid environment and collaborating with cross-functional teams. How do you ensure strong working relationships and effective communication when not everyone is in the same physical location? (Showcase your adaptability and collaboration skills.)
• How do you measure the success of design initiatives beyond aesthetics, focusing on business outcomes like brand equity, consumer delight, or operational efficiency? (Be prepared to discuss KPIs and ROI.)

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Structure for Operations Impact: For each case study, frame your narrative around the problem, your strategic solution, the operational process of bringing it to life (e.g., how you managed asset creation, enforced guidelines), and the measurable business results.
• Highlight Systemic Thinking: Clearly articulate how your work established or utilized design systems, brand guidelines, or repeatable processes that enabled scalability and consistency. Use visual aids to illustrate these systems.
• Quantify Everything Possible: Present data on brand perception shifts, consumer engagement improvements, market share growth, or any efficiency gains achieved through your design work.
• Demonstrate Cross-Functional Fluency: Explain how you collaborated with different departments, translated their needs into design, and ensured the final output aligned with broader business goals.

📝 Enhancement Note: The interview preparation focuses on strategic thinking, operational execution, and measurable impact, aligning with the demands of a senior role that bridges creative leadership and business operations. Candidates must demonstrate they can manage design as a strategic asset that drives tangible business results efficiently.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Design Manager, Wellness position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on the Haleon Careers portal.
• Customize your resume: Highlight your 10+ years of experience, specifically mentioning expertise in Branding, Design Systems, Innovation Design, and FMCG/healthcare environments. Use keywords from the job description, such as "omnichannel brand design," "human-centered design," and "creative governance." Quantify achievements wherever possible.
• Prepare your portfolio: Curate 2-3 of your strongest projects that demonstrate end-to-end brand system design, cross-functional collaboration, and measurable business impact. Be ready to present these with a focus on your strategic process and operational execution.
• Research Haleon: Familiarize yourself with Haleon's purpose, mission, key brands (especially in Wellness), and their commitment to "better everyday health with humanity." Understand their target consumers and market position.
• Practice your presentation: Rehearse your portfolio walkthrough, focusing on clearly articulating your role, strategic approach, design process, and the operational aspects of your work. Be prepared to answer questions about how you drive efficiency and consistency in design execution.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.

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