Studio Design Lead: Hands-On Creative Leadership

Kiwi Rail; Wellington; On-site; NZD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

KiwiRail Passenger is seeking a Creative Design Lead in Wellington to drive high-impact creative work across digital, print and physical formats while leading an in-house studio. This senior role balances hands-on design with team leadership, coaching two designers and shaping studio standards, processes and output across multiple channels.

You will translate brand strategy into distinctive, accessible creative responses, manage briefs and approvals, and collaborate with Marketing, Product,

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 into distinctive, consistent work.
• Experience balancing hands-on senior creative work with leading, coaching and developing a design team.

Responsibilities

• 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.

Skills

Senior design experience

Brand thinking

Creative judgement

Team leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Tertiary qualification in creative/design

Tools

Adobe Creative Suite

AI-enabled workflows

Job description

KiwiRail Passenger is seeking a Creative Design Lead in Wellington to drive high-impact creative work across digital, print and physical formats while leading an in-house studio. This senior role balances hands-on design with team leadership, coaching two designers and shaping studio standards, processes and output across multiple channels.

You will translate brand strategy into distinctive, accessible creative responses, manage briefs and approvals, and collaborate with Marketing, Product,