Creative Design Lead | Wellington

KiwiRail Freight; Wellington; On-site; NZD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hands-on leadership

Broad visibility

Diverse portfolio

Templates and tools

Coaching designers

Job summary

KiwiRail in Wellington is seeking a Studio Design Lead to run the in-house Passenger Design Studio, delivering complex creative work across digital, print and customer experiences while guiding two Designers.

This true player-coach role balances hands-on design with team leadership, shaping studio standards, templates and AI-enabled workflows to ensure accessible, on-brand output across KiwiRail Passenger brands.

Qualifications

• Significant senior design and creative experience across digital, social, campaign, print and physical customer experiences.
• Strong brand thinking and the ability to translate brand strategy and customer propositions into distinctive, consistent creative work.
• Experience balancing hands-on senior creative work with leading, coaching and developing a design team.

Responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day operation of the Passenger Design Studio and develop two Designers.
• Provide creative direction, feedback, and quality assurance across studio output.
• Manage intake, briefs, workflow, priorities, capacity, approvals and delivery commitments.
• Improve studio efficiency through templates, reusable assets, digital tools and AI-enabled workflows.

Skills

Senior design leadership

Brand thinking

Accessible design

Team coaching

Education

Relevant tertiary qualification in design

Tools

Video editing

Motion design

AI-enabled workflows

Job description

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• Lead creative delivery across Interislander, Great Journeys New Zealand and KiwiRail Passenger
• Wellington based

At KiwiRail, we're proud to connect people, goods and communities across Aotearoa. Through Interislander and Great Journeys New Zealand, our Passenger business delivers some of the country's most recognised transport and tourism experiences. As Passenger continues to evolve, high-quality, accessible and effective design is essential to how we communicate with customers and bring our brands and experiences to life. This is an opportunity to lead the in-house studio responsible for delivering creative work across a diverse mix of customer and business channels.

This is a true player-coach role: equal parts hands‑on senior creative and team leadership. You'll tackle some of our most important creative work yourself, while coaching and developing the team, setting the creative standard and process, and building a more mature, high‑performing in‑house studio.

Reporting to the Senior Marketing Manager, the Creative & Design Lead is a senior, hands‑on design role responsible for delivering complex and high‑priority creative work while leading the day‑to‑day operation of the in‑house Passenger Design Studio and two Designer roles.

You will manage studio intake, workflow, priorities and production standards, ensuring briefs and approvals are clear, work is allocated to the right resource, and stakeholders have visibility of timing and delivery. You will also provide creative direction, coach the design team, and use external specialists where additional capability or capacity is required.

To be successful in the role you’re someone who can balance creative quality with pace, accessibility, production requirements, customer needs, and practical delivery. You understand that a brand is much more than logos and colours. You'll help translate brand strategy, customer propositions and campaign ideas into creative work that feels distinctive, relevant and consistent, whether that's digital content, a campaign, customer communication or physical experience.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Personally, designing and delivering complex, high‑priority work across digital, social, print, websites, events, presentations, signage and physical formats.
• Leading the daily operation of the Passenger Design Studio and developing two Designers.
• Providing creative direction, feedback, and quality assurance across studio output.
• Managing studio intake, briefs, workflow, priorities, capacity, approvals, files and delivery commitments.
• Ensuring creative work meets customer, channel, accessibility, production and approved brand requirements.
• Determining when work should be completed internally or supported by external creative and production specialists.
• Managing approved suppliers, production schedules, quality, costs and delivery.
• Improving studio efficiency through templates, reusable assets, digital tools, automation and approved AI‑enabled ways of working.
• Great creative work here is collaborative. You'll work across Marketing, Product, Customer Experience, Digital, Revenue and Operations, understanding different perspectives and helping teams land on solutions that work for the customer, the brand and the business.
• You’ll be a trusted creative partner to teams across Passenger, helping stakeholders turn an opportunity, problem or sometimes ambiguous idea into a clear brief and compelling creative response.
• Keeping stakeholders informed about priorities, timing, decisions, risks and delivery.

We're looking for a highly capable, hands‑on designer who combines strong creative judgement with organised and reliable studio leadership.

You'll bring:

• Significant senior design and creative experience across digital, social, campaign, print and physical customer experiences, and have an accessible portfolio to prove this.
• Strong brand thinking and the ability to translate brand strategy and customer propositions into distinctive, consistent creative work.
• Excellent creative judgement and an eye for detail, craft and consistency. You know what great looks like and can help others get there.
• Experience balancing hands‑on senior creative work with leading, coaching and developing a design team.
• Experience helping a creative team mature its capability, standards and ways of working.
• Strong conceptual and visual problem‑solving skills, with the ability to turn ambiguity into a clear brief and creative direction.
• A collaborative style and experience working across Marketing, Product, Customer Experience, Digital, Commercial and operational teams.
• An understanding of creative effectiveness, with curiosity about customer insight, feedback and performance and how these can improve future work.
• Confidence challenging briefs and ideas constructively while building strong stakeholder relationships.
• Experience across evolving creative formats and tools, including video, motion, digital and emerging AI‑enabled workflows.
• Strong production knowledge and attention to detail, ensuring creative work is accurate, accessible, consistent, fit for purpose and meets quality standards.
• A relevant tertiary qualification within the creative and design space, or equivalent professional experience.

Nōu te rourou | What's in it for you

This is a rewarding opportunity to combine senior creative practice with team and studio leadership across nationally recognised passenger and tourism brands.

• A hands‑on creative leadership role with broad visibility across KiwiRail Passenger.
• The opportunity to shape studio workflow, capability, quality and ways of working.
• A varied portfolio spanning digital, social, print, customer communications, events and physical environments.
• The chance to introduce practical tools, templates and approved technology that improve creative delivery.
• An opportunity to coach designers and build a collaborative, accountable and high‑performing studio.

ua rite, kia rite | Ready to make a difference?

If you're an experienced design leader who enjoys solving visual communication challenges, developing others and delivering high‑quality creative work at pace, we'd love to hear from you.

Join KiwiRail and help create clear, engaging and memorable design experiences for Passenger customers across Aotearoa.

Applications close: Thursday 5th of November 2026

The title of this position has been changed for advertising purposes. The official position title is Studio Design Lead.