Education Client Leader I

About The Role

Your role is focused on partnering with other client leaders or market leaders in the Education market to build and/or maintain strategic long-term relationships with targeted clients. You will contribute to the success of the market/office by participating in marketing and business development, as well as client and team leadership activities. In this role, you will advance the quality of our work, integrate our range of design services, manage our processes, and deliver solid financial performance. You will be an ambassador of our brand, demonstrating how our Living-Centered Design approach can help clients and partners achieve their goals.

Responsibilities

In this role, the majority of your time will be spent on client and team leadership activities engaged directly on Education projects. Expectations of success include:

• Client Leadership: Leading, engaging, and partnering with our clients on billable project-specific work, fostering strong long-term client relationships, driving successful project outcomes and financial success, while creating opportunities for future engagements.
• Top Line Growth: Developing new net signed fee opportunities for our markets, practices, and service lines through successful implementation of work with existing clients. Participating in marketing activities, including proposal preparation and interviews with new target clients, to increase our firm’s top-line capture. You will have a personal goal of achieving $1.0M per year in net signed fees.
• Team Leadership: Leading high-performance teams and working collaboratively within our SFMO (Single-Firm, Multi-Office) culture to advance and support teams focused on delivering high-quality service and innovative design solutions to our clients.
• Strategy and Planning: Developing an understanding of the business, operations, and process needs of the client. Working with other leadership to assemble a comprehensive team of experts and thought leaders within CannonDesign to execute creative, state-of-the-art solutions.
• Bottom Line Growth: Working with the Business Practice Leader and Office Market Leader to ensure our firm’s business practices, goals, and bottom-line initiatives are successfully implemented.
• Staff Development: Mentoring and growing emerging professionals. Assisting in establishing an environment that encourages leadership, integrity, humility, respect, collaboration, experimentation, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. Building enthusiasm for Living-Centered Design among teams.

Requirements

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in the Education Market, preferably working in the A/E/I industry.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.
• Current Registration/Licensure in Architecture, Interior Design, or Engineering preferred.
• Expertise in a given discipline area to manage projects and guide client/project teams.
• Strong communication and leadership skills.
• Business acumen and proven ability to execute strategy.
• Professional acumen and maturity demonstrated by the ability to communicate authentically and respectfully.
• Some travel required.

Benefits

For a general overview of our benefits, please visit our careers page.

About Our Firm

CannonDesign is a design practice where strategy, experience, architecture, engineering, and social impact converge. We don’t just dream up solutions — we create and bring them to life to solve some of the biggest challenges facing our clients and society. At the heart of everything we do is Living-Centered Design, a bold commitment to using our talents to not just improve the world but to truly reshape it for the better.

We are relentless in our pursuit of client adoration (not simply satisfaction) and committed to ensuring our practice provides equal opportunities for all employees. We support equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts through our DEI Council, Employee Resource Groups, and community initiatives. We value communication and transparency, fostering an environment where ideas and challenges can be openly discussed.