Design Manager

Kimball International•Jasper, IN

About The Position

In this influential leadership role, you will lead a dynamic team of designers dedicated to supporting our dealer partners, end users, and the Architecture & Design community. You will oversee the creation of strategic design solutions that blend functionality, aesthetics, and competitive positioning—while leading a team that actively supports and drives revenue growth. This role goes beyond traditional design management. You will innovate how manufacturer designers partner with sales, leverage digital tools, and deliver scalable services that strengthen dealer relationships and enhance the overall design ecosystem. This multifaceted role requires strategic collaboration with cross-functional stakeholders across sales, products, digital tools, and dealer partners. You will cultivate a high-performing team culture while leveraging market insights, customer trends, and competitive intelligence to continuously evolve how design supports the business. Success in this role means strengthening relationships, modernizing service models, and delivering innovative, scalable design solutions that elevate the client experience and position design as a proactive driver of growth—not just a reactive support function. In partnership with Sales and senior leadership, you will ensure design resources are strategically aligned to high-value opportunities. You will establish clear prioritization frameworks, optimize team capacity, and position design as a measurable contributor to win-rate and revenue growth.

Requirements

Bachelors Degree in Interior Design, or equivalent practical experience
10+ years Interior Design experience
10+ Office furniture specification experience
Travels to customer & dealer sites as needed
Configura/ CET, AutoCAD & CAP
Interior Design space planning and codes
Solid knowledge of Alternative workplace strategies & Activity Based Design
Ability to listen to customer needs & create product applications based upon discussion
Learns & reinforces the use of new technologies related to the entire sales process
Strategic, sales-driven mindset that understands how design influences win rates
Experience leveraging AI resources related to design
Experience utilizing Salesforce and Salesforce reporting
Experience using Teamwork, or other workload management programs
Fosters an environment of trust and respect with peers, leaders & employees; has integrity.
Self-starter, identifies & drives desired results
Drives progress to hit targeted deadlines
Ensures the sharing of product, spec and project execution tips to various functions
Provide coaching & feedback to improve results
Ability to facilitate conflict resolution
Ability to co-lead with Sales Leaders to drive results
Seeks out personal development opportunities to enhance your skills and those in Design Team roles.
Experience leading remote team members
Consults with Sales leaders to understand business needs & drives actions to aid in hitting region based targets
Understands & anticipates customer needs based upon market realities, builds training, processes, & centralized tools to meet those needs
Excellent verbal, written and listening skills
Effectively presents to small groups
Adjusts communication & style for audience
Prepared with objectives & anticipates questions

Nice To Haves

5+ years experience leading remote team members, highly preferred
Salesforce experience and Salesforce reporting, highly preferred
Manufacturer experience is a plus
Sales experience is a plus
Ability to Travel, at least 15%

Responsibilities

Inspires and motivates the design team to reach new heights and deliver exceptional solutions to our customers
Creates & drives the business actions needed when business conditions change or new product categories are launched
Proactively drives business enhancements & continuous improvements based upon customer requirements
Measures & manages team performance
Drives development & continuous improvement on technology enablers, database, training & development platform that facilitates desired performance, best practices & key learnings across Design Team
Creates & drives the business actions needed to enable Design Strategists, Outsource Specifiers, Dealers, Designers the ability to create value-spec solutions
Facilitates best practices, key learnings & trends on products, specs, and project execution tips across Design team. Drives information & feedback to Technical team, Product Development/ Positioning & Marketing
Directs the internal Design Strategists and assigned to areas of Marketing, Product Development/Positioning & Training
Creates & maintains a training & development platform for Design Strategists
Documents training plan for each team member, inclusive of approximate timeline dependent upon type of skill set entering into the role
Collaborates with Sales and A&D Leadership on additional training & development to improve performance in specification accuracy, speed, application usage & business needs to improve win ratio
Drives sharing of tips & best practices amongst Design Team
Organizes & maintains an audited outsource network for specification overflow.
Works directly with Sales Leaders to source & manage outsource specifiers
Drives common understanding & execution of adjusting business processes to align with dealer, A&D, & Sales Leadership needs
Assess outsource specifiers through use of formal audit process, or Design Team feedback
Collaborates with Sales teams on continuous improvement efforts related to Design Team
Outsource Efficiency: Data guides decisions on when and where to outsource design work for cost-effectiveness
Progress Tracking: Uses data-driven metrics to measure team progress on projects. Ensure proper information is being shared from field sales to move a project through the funnel in a timely manner
Resource Allocation: Analyzes data to optimize the use of design resources, aligning skills with project needs
Project Hour Oversight: Monitor team hours per project to ensure projects stay on schedule, field sales properly utilizes design resources and maintain a balanced workload for Design Strategist