Vice President, Client Platforms User Experience Designer

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Ares is seeking a Vice-President to serve as User Experience Designer for Client Platforms Technology, the engineering team responsible for all Client facing systems within Ares, including Sales, Marketing, Client Reporting, and Digital/Web platforms. Reporting to a Principal service as Client Platforms Digital Experience Lead, the successful candidate will play a pivotal role in shaping the user experience and visual design of Ares’ digital products, including corporate websites, client portals, digital reporting interfaces, and internal applications.

As a senior member of the Digital Experience team, this individual will lead UX strategy and end‐to‐end design execution, creating intuitive, elegant, and accessible digital experiences that meet the needs of institutional and wealth clients, prospects, investors, and internal stakeholders. This VP will partner closely with the Digital Experience Lead to define best‐in‐class design standards, elevate digital usability across platforms, and champion a user‐centred design culture across the team. The individual will collaborate with product owners, developers, business stakeholders, and content teams to translate complex financial concepts into clear, compelling digital interactions. This is a highly visible role requiring strong design leadership, excellent communication skills, deep expertise in UI/UX principles and enterprise digital ecosystems, and the ability to deliver thoughtful, strategic solutions in a fast‐moving environment.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities

• Shape the user experience strategy for digital products, ensuring seamless, coherent experiences across websites, portals, and application interfaces.
• Lead the design of information architecture, user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and high‐fidelity UI designs.
• Establish and maintain the firm's digital design system, ensuring consistency, re-use of design effort, accessibility, and brand alignment.
• Advocate for user‐centred design practices and influence decision‐making across Digital Platforms and business teams.
• Translate complex financial services workflows into streamlined, intuitive digital interactions.

Collaboration & Delivery

• Collaborate with the Digital Experience Lead to set UX vision, design standards, and long‐term digital experience strategy.
• Work closely with Web Architects, developers, product managers, marketing, and data teams to bring designs to life.
• Conduct usability testing, stakeholder reviews, and design workshops to validate and refine concepts.
• Support the delivery of responsive, accessible, high‐performance interfaces aligned with technical and platform constraints.
• Contribute to multi‐disciplinary project teams delivering websites, dashboards, data visualizations, and client‐facing digital tools.

Research, Insights & Continuous Improvement

• Lead user research efforts including interviews, journey mapping, analytics review, and competitive analysis.
• Identify usability gaps and propose digital experience enhancements backed by data and user insights.
• Stay current with emerging trends in UX, visual design, accessibility, digital personalization, and financial services technology.
• Partner with the Digital Experience Lead to define KPIs for user engagement and digital experience quality.

Governance & Standards

• Champion digital accessibility (WCAG) and design inclusivity across all touchpoints.
• Maintain design documentation, guidelines, and governance frameworks to ensure quality at scale.
• Guide junior designers, contractors, or external agencies in applying the firm’s digital experience standards.

Required Experience & Background

• 7–10+ years of experience in UI/UX design or digital product design, including experience in a senior or lead designer role.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating enterprise‐level UX design, responsive web design, and visually sophisticated UI work.
• Expertise with Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, or comparable industry design tools.
• Deep understanding of UX methodologies, design thinking, and user‐centered design frameworks.
• Experience conducting user research, user testing, and translating insights into actionable design improvements.
• Ability to create wireframes, prototypes, design systems, reusable component libraries and polished UI assets.
• Strong collaboration skills and comfortable working with technical stakeholders, including developers and architects.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to present complex concepts to non‐design audiences.
• Familiarity with front‐end development concepts and constraints (HTML, CSS, JS, animation frameworks such as Motion) and CMS platforms such as AEM.

Preferred Experience

• Experience in asset management, wealth management, financial services, or another regulated environment.
• Knowledge of data visualization, dashboard design, or complex transactional UI patterns.
• Experience with enterprise design systems and scalable component‐based design methodologies.
• Understanding of personalization platforms, marketing automation tools, and customer journey design.
• Exposure to accessibility compliance frameworks (WCAG 2.x) and inclusive design principles.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Design, Human‐Computer Interaction, Digital Media, or a related field.

There is no set deadline to apply for this job opportunity. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the search is no longer active.