This role drops a design leader into a live design-system power struggle: product, engineering, and marketing are all being formalized at once, and design either becomes an operating function with decision rights or stays a service layer blamed for outcomes it does not control.
PE growth reset and design control
Company recapitalization and leadership-transition records show that ParetoHealth took on equal ownership from Warburg Pincus and Great Hill Partners in June 2023 to fund expansion, then replaced or added the CEO, CFO, and new product, marketing, and underwriting chiefs across 2024–2025 while scaling to roughly 325–337 employees, $2.4 billion in healthcare benefits managed, and $600 million in stop-loss premiums. That combination creates a board-level mandate for institutionalization: founder-era improvisation is replaced with defined systems, measurable output, and cross-functional control that protects growth economics. This role exists because design must be documented, enforced, and made legible across product and brand under a newly reset executive bench.
Design authority across product, brand, and execution
This role owns the shift from ad hoc design support to a disciplined function. This leader sets design standards, deploys systems that govern product and visual consistency, and enforces clear execution structure for the Art Director and Senior Graphic Designer. Daily work is less about hands-on craft and more about forcing alignment, defending priorities, triaging requests, and securing decision authority early enough to avoid carrying accountability for quality, speed, and coherence without control over the roadmap.
What must be built before growth breaks consistency
- Design Operating System: Build and document a design function with intake rules, review standards, approval paths, and measurable output across product and marketing work.
- System Enforcement: Deliver a usable design system and governance model that contains visual drift, reduces rework, and gives engineering and product a stable execution standard.
- Team Command: Direct the Art Director and Senior Graphic Designer, assign work by business priority, audit output quality, and create reporting discipline that scales beyond founder-style requests.
- Cross-Functional Control: Secure standing with product, engineering, and executive leadership by defending design priorities, escalating trade-off decisions, and tying design choices to speed, consistency, and growth economics.
The operator profile needed to win the lane
- Function-Building Tenure: 96+ months leading product design, brand design, or mixed design organizations, including direct ownership of team structure, standards, and cross-functional decision-making.
- Systems Depth: Proven record deploying design systems, workflow governance, and review frameworks that engineering and product teams actually adopt.
- Political Range: Experience working inside high-growth or private-equity-backed environments where executive turnover, shifting priorities, and adjacent power centers shape daily execution.
Philadelphia design leadership pay under growth pressure
For a full-time, on-site design leadership seat in Center City Philadelphia, this base range lands in the upper band for a role that blends product influence, brand control, and team-building responsibility. The commute and office presence reduce flexibility; the compensation is structured for candidates who want operating authority and a visible leadership credential more than remote convenience.
- Base Salary Range: $190,000 – $240,000 USD / Year
- Leadership Scope: Direct ownership of design standards, team structure, and cross-functional influence during an executive rebuild.
- Career Signal: This role sets up the next move into VP of Design, VP of Product Design, or broader experience design leadership inside a growth-stage company.
Before you trade craft time for organizational power
- The Physical Presence Directive
- Location: Philadelphia, PA. Status: On-site at 2005 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
- Relocation Posture
- Relocation support is not part of the operating logic here. A company in executive reset and systems build mode prioritizes immediate in-market execution and fast alignment over funded relocation.
- The Candidate This Role Is Built For
- This role is built for a design leader in ascent who wants strategic standing, team-building authority, and product influence more than daily hands-on craft work; it is a poor fit for candidates who want protected maker time or low-conflict collaboration.
Green Flags
- Advantage: Resume Equity: Eighteen months here gives a high-value signal: the leader who built a respected design function from near-zero formalization inside a PE-backed growth company during executive turnover.
- Advantage: Executive Timing: New product, marketing, and finance leadership creates an opening to define standards before habits harden, which gives design a real shot at operating authority instead of permanent service status.
Red Flags
- Warning Sign: Authority Gap Risk: The daily pain point is structural: if product and engineering define the lane first, this role absorbs responsibility for design quality, speed, and consistency without controlling the roadmap decisions that drive them.
- Warning Sign: Craft Loss: This is not a refuge for senior individual contributors. The work is political, process-heavy, and management-dense; hands-on design time drops fast once alignment fights and team structure work begin.
