Senior Manager Design, Brand Concepts

About the Role

The Converse Global Concepts team exists as the connective tissue between innovation, design, brand storytelling, and marketplace experiences. Brand Concepts is the anchor point for our products, stories, experiences, and moments—built to inspire Creators and embrace subcultures. We ensure Converse’s long-term vision is expressed through compelling narratives, world building, and deeply grounded cultural fluency.

Working upstream, we translate emerging cultural signals, creator insights, and consumer behaviors into visionary product direction, brand stories, and environmental concepts—with the end consumer experience in mind. Our team spans a broad range of creative capabilities across brand touchpoints and anchors upstream creative strategy to drive aligned, end-to-end excellence across product creation, merchandising, brand creative, and retail.

Responsibilities

As our Senior Manager Design, Brand Concepts, you will lead a small team which is responsible for driving the design and creative execution for Global Brand Concepts across each season. You will work closely with Product, Design, Brand Experience, Brand Creative, Marketing, and Merchandising partners to create and elevate Converse Concepts and Brand stories with the final consumer experience in mind.

You’ll collaborate with internal and external consumer insights and future-focused strategy teams, and you’ll frequently partner with agencies and external creatives to bring these concepts to life. Your work will be the early in the process and through creative presentations, room buildouts, multi-media and future finding you will help shape a sharp point of view across product, storytelling and experiences from insights, to seasonal kick-off, to final Product and Concept Reviews.

A typical week may include:

• Translating cultural signals and consumer/creator insights into concept narratives and future visions
• Building and visualizing “brand worlds” across product, graphics, storytelling, and experiences
• Managing the teams resources and scheduling across creative projects and multi-season work
• Presenting direction and seeking alignment from cross-functional and senior leaders
• Developing concept explorations across 2D (decks, narratives, graphic systems) and 3D (spaces, environments, objects)
• Creating high-craft presentations that articulate intent, tell a compelling story, and drive cross-functional alignment
• Leading brainstorm sessions with cross-functional teams to ensure concepts are feasible, on-brief, and on-time
• Leading and partnering with agencies/external creatives to expand capability and scale creative output
• Prototyping and building models/environments to create excitement and clarity around future ideas

Requirements

We are seeking a Senior Manager of Design for the Global Concepts Team with a proven ability to bring brands to life through exceptional storytelling, innovative vision, and world building—across product exploration, environments, and communication design.

The ideal candidate will have:

• 10+ years of progressive, technically sophisticated design experience in experiential, environmental, industrial design, or brand creative—with demonstrated impact elevating brand excellence
• Bachelor’s degree in architecture, industrial design, environmental design, graphic design, communications design, or related field
• Experience managing creative teams (both internal and external) with proven ability to lead, motivate and mentor designers, fostering creative excellence and professional growth
• Strong understanding of the competitive fashion, streetwear, and lifestyle brand landscape, with an ability to identify and translate cultural insights into differentiated concepts, product opportunities and narratives
• A well-curated portfolio showcasing a strong methodology across research, inspiration, development, process, and final execution
• A self-starting creative mindset demonstrated through an effective methodology for research, active seeker of new inspiration, a hunger for problem solving, and fearless appetite to create the future
• A strong creative lead with refined taste and point of view, able to set clear direction for the concept/design team and know when to push, refine, or edit to deliver high-quality outcomes

Qualifications

In addition to the requirements, the ideal candidate will have:

• Ability to remain curious, motivated, and optimistic while navigating ambiguity and adapting to change
• Ability to show concepts through 3D modeling and rendering; proficiency in SketchUp, Rhino, Cinema 4D, Blender, or similar
• Capability and willingness to jump into the hands-on work through making, building, prototyping, room-buildouts, visual merchandising, etc
• High proficiency in 2D design + presentation tools (Keynote, Adobe Creative Suite, Miro, Figma)
• Strong narrative development and communication skills; ability to present to leadership and external partners using creative presentation styles that win alignment and investment
• Proven ability to work independently and across small/large groups on complex projects in a fast-evolving environment
• Positive, inclusive, team-first mindset—embracing diverse points of view while fostering an environment of belonging
• An unmistakable passion for the Converse Brand and the authentic connection points to music, art, fashion, sport and culture

Pay

The annual base salary for this position ranges from $139,700.00 in our lowest geographic market to $294,100.00 in our highest geographic market. Actual salary will vary based on a candidate's location, qualifications, skills and experience.