Head of Design Volvo Penta & Energy

This is us, your new colleagues


Volvo Group makes businesses within the transportation, mobility, construction and energy sectors to be the most attractive, productive, safe and sustainable in their market. We do this by offering products and services tied into a cohesive eco-system where the sum is greater than the parts.
Our department, Volvo Group Design, relentlessly imagines, proposes and implements new and improved solutions through Design thinking. The Design Team are responsible for designing all customer facing applications such as physical products, digital experiences and services weaved into integrated class leading systems and experiences.
We now have a new opportunity within our Design Team as Head of Design , where you will be covering the business areas Penta and Energy.
The main task of this role is to lead all physical design related activities from strategy to production and orchestrate customer facing applications involving digital user interfaces and services into one cohesive experience. You will work closely with other Chief Designers, internal stakeholders and external partners. You will report directly to our Design Director.


This is how you could make an impact


In this role, you will be responsible for Penta Marine leisure & commercial power and control solutions as well as power and energy solutions for other industrial applications. The new initiative Volvo Energy, which is focusing on electrical power infrastructure, will also be a part of the responsibility. The focus is on taking all physical products from new ideas to fully launched products as well as being the coordinator of all other customer facing touchpoints into one cohesive experience in collaboration with other Chief Designers. You will be innovating from a blank page via re-imagining products & services to optimizing existing products based on connected customer data and apply customer insights driven design methods.
You will also co-operate closely with Brand Strategists, Product Managers, Advanced Engineers etc. to secure customer and design driven solutions all the way to finalizing physical designs for production.


Other responsibilities within the role are:
Strong focus on delivering physical product designs and experience from production projects
Experience and a will for orchestrating all customer facing touchpoints (digital interfaces and service design) into one cohesive experience
Constantly zoom in and out between the larger business and brand perspectives and detailed product specific designs
Be passionate and curious about designing marine power and control solutions and electric infrastructure experiences
Be an active Head of Design by showing purpose, conceptual design and the defined design space directions to be further explored and detailed by temporarily teams of specialist designers.
Run and participate in design reviews with other designers, peer Chief designers, larger milestones and strategic recommendations to the Design Director.

Who are you? Are we a perfect match?


You have a natural ability to communicate strategies, concepts and detailed physical designs through 3D models, images, animations, VR experiences etc. with the purpose to set design directions and refine concepts and craft detailed solutions. You are probably experienced in methods of gathering insights turned into clear conclusions, problem statements and actionable design goals. As we are an international company, it is preferable if you have experience from international assignments or worked within a larger global context with diverse demographics and cultural backgrounds. We also see that you have several years of experience working with advanced design, concepts and production solutions covering mainly physical products but have collaborated on digital experiences, service and brand design with a systematic approach.
Last but not, you have a passion and curiosity for designing the future of boating power and control experiences as well as new energy solution


Other requirements for the role are:
Minimum Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Industrial or Transportation Design.
Mastering 3D modeling and animation in tools like Alias, VRED, Blende etc. to demonstrate new physical products and customer journeys as well as full customer facing eco-system solutions.
Storytelling and visual communications skills mastering Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, PowerPoint etc. to direct specialist designers and dialogues with business and technical partners.
Design Experience from Automotive, Transportation, Mobility or Service industries involving physical products, multiple touchpoints or customer journeys is a bonus.

Portfolio or equivalent documentation of projects, achievements, skills and personal contributions is necessary.
The role is based in Gothenburg, Sweden at Volvo Group Design in Lundby.
You report to our Design Director


Curious, and have some questions? Call me!


Mikael Gordh, Design Director Volvo Construction Equipment, Buses, Penta and Energy
E-mail – mikael.gordh@volvo.com
Mobile - +46 73 902 08 98


Kindly note that due to GDPR, we will not accept applications via mail. Please use our career site.