Senior Director, Information Design and Graphics

Ankura • New York, NY

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Ankura is a team of excellence founded on innovation and growth. Visual Communications Consulting (VCC) sits inside Disputes & Economics and serves every practice on the Ankura map. We are one bench with three doors. Trial Studio delivers courtroom-grade demonstratives, scientific illustration, 2D and 3D animation, jury research, courtroom technology, and opening and closing presentations built shoulder to shoulder with counsel. Creative Comms carries transformation narratives, executive and board storytelling, crisis and litigation communications, and employee campaigns. Net New Creative is the multiplier: AI-augmented production, analytics storytelling, interactive exhibits, explainability design for models and data, and a content engine that runs across social, video, web, and events, all operating inside the firm's secure AI environment. The overlaps are the offer. Every practice at Ankura produces analysis that must persuade someone; VCC exists to bring those stories to life. We are expanding from a regional trial-services practice into a national and, in time, global one, and we are hiring the leaders who will build it. We are looking for a Senior Director who does one thing better than almost anyone: takes dense, technical, high-stakes material and turns it into visuals that a judge, a juror, a board, or a regulator can follow and believe. This is a senior craft and leadership role at the center of the practice, with a particular mandate in healthcare and life sciences, where Ankura's medical device, pharmaceutical, hospital, and health policy work produces exactly the kind of clinical, scientific, and regulatory content that needs a designer who has lived inside it. You will lead information design and graphics across Trial Studio and Creative Comms: demonstratives and trial presentations, scientific and mechanism illustration, infographics, presentation systems, proposal and pursuit templates, and brand governance for the practice's output. You will build and manage the template and asset systems that let a national practice deliver consistent, courtroom-grade work from any city, and you will mentor a growing bench of designers as the practice scales. New York places you in the first wave of our regional expansion and close to the Am Law 100 firms and corporate legal departments that drive our trial pipeline.

Requirements

• Twelve or more years in information design, presentation design, or graphic design, including senior roles where you led design for a professional services firm, a life sciences or healthcare company, or a litigation graphics practice.
• A portfolio that shows complex-to-clear translation: scientific, clinical, financial, or technical content rendered for non-expert decision makers. Healthcare and life sciences depth is strongly preferred.
• Experience building and governing template systems, brand standards, and reusable asset libraries for a distributed organization.
• Expert-level command of Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Creative Cloud, with working knowledge of motion, interactive, or 3D tools and current AI-assisted design platforms.
• A record of leading website, brand, or presentation redesigns, managing vendors and budgets, and mentoring junior designers.
• Calm under deadline and comfortable working directly with attorneys, experts, and executives; trial or hearing experience is a strong plus.
• Bachelor of Fine Arts or equivalent in visual communications, graphic design, or a related field.

Nice To Haves

• Healthcare and life sciences depth is strongly preferred.
• trial or hearing experience is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

• Design and direct courtroom demonstratives, trial presentations, and hearing graphics that translate clinical data, scientific mechanisms, financial analysis, and technical evidence into clear, persuasive visuals in partnership with counsel and testifying experts.
• Lead information design for healthcare and life sciences matters: mechanism-of-action diagrams, study designs, regulatory pathways, device and procedure illustration, and data visualization built to withstand cross-examination.
• Own the practice's presentation systems, proposal and RFP templates, and brand standards, ensuring that work produced across regional pods and the core studio meets a single quality bar.
• Design executive, board, and investor presentations, infographics, and digital and print collateral for Creative Comms engagements and for Ankura practices that engage VCC on their client work.
• Manage design production on multiple concurrent matters: scoping, scheduling, vendor and freelance coordination, budget tracking, and quality control against tight trial and hearing deadlines.
• Integrate AI-assisted design and production tools into the studio workflow inside the firm's secure AI environment, and help set the standards for where they are used and where they are not.
• Mentor designers and trial technicians, lead critiques, and contribute to hiring and upskilling as the bench grows.
• Support the New York regional pod and pursuit activity with local law firms and corporate clients alongside the practice lead and Ankura Disputes & Economics leadership.

Benefits

• Ankura is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against based on disability. Equal Employment Opportunity Posters, if you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, submit an online application, or participate in an interview/assessment, please email [email protected] or call toll-free +1.312-583-2122. This email and phone number are created exclusively to assist disabled job seekers whose disability prevents them from being able to apply online. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned. Messages left for other purposes, such as following up on an application or technical issues unrelated to a disability, will not receive a response.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree