Job Description

Celebrate Life, the Southworth Way

The Company: Welcome to Southworth, a lifestyle company. We own and operate a growing portfolio of premier private communities, each offering inspired environments and locations. Our dedication to hospitality and endless activities for the entire family ensures our members experience a world at play like never before.

With a solid reputation for stability, integrity, and innovation, Southworth's clubs and communities provide exceptional locations where our members can truly live life at ease. Our dedicated team members play a crucial role in elevating the experience for our members, residents, guests, and fellow team members. We encourage all our team members to be and belong by providing a wide array of benefits, engagement programs, unique perks, discounts, and, of course, a lot of fun!

The Benefits: We are proud of our “family company” roots and understand everyone has a unique set of needs: we want to support you as best we can so you can live your best life with us. We offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes competitive options for medical, physical, and mental health and wellness, life insurance, 401k matching, paid time off, and more.

Grow with us! The sky is the limit for talented, driven individuals. With our ever expanding portfolio, we offer opportunities to learn, grow, and thrive. We look forward to growing together.

Be YOU with us! At Southworth, we are working to redefine the country club. We seek talent from a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences, and cultures to ensure an innovative edge. Here, diversity is a driver of our success.

The Opportunity: Southworth is seeking a passionate and process-oriented remote* Director of Planning & Design with the drive and experience to oversee and elevate our projects globally. The Director of Planning & Design will possess strategic insight, as well as exceptional leadership skills, creative thinking abilities and a process-driven approach to producing quality designs that meet each unique market need and achieve common goals throughout the organization. The Director of Planning & Design will serve as one of Southworth’s key leaders and will be responsible for the full breadth of our design and planning activities, requiring an entrepreneurial spirit, innovative approach, and a proven track-record of leadership and results.

The Director of Planning & Design is responsible for cultivating and maintaining the overall vision for each property, ensuring that all aspects of the operation are reflective of the sense of place and stated goals, and create a cohesive design story that connects all aspects of a property.

The Director of Planning & Design will lead designs of all residential product types, clubhouses, restaurants, marinas, commercial spaces, and master plans. The Director of Planning & Design is responsible for managing the in-house design team as well as stewarding third party design professionals to the achievement of on time and on budget delivery.

They will work with the CDO to establish annual goals and key metrics, measure performance, effectively manage within budget, maximize growth and profitability, find relevant ways to decrease cost without impacting outcomes, and improve the design process through creativity, innovative products, and methodology.

This role is responsible for ensuring the most appropriate designs are being used, to the highest level of quality, and at the appropriate level of expense as directed by the Chief Development Officer. You’ll spend your days embedded with design professionals, managing a team of designers covering interiors, architecture, and land planning tasked with creating timely and quality design deliverables to further the stated goals of each project. The role will also manage third parties design professionals in efficiently reviewing plans based on senior leadership input, and work to create a holistic approach to creating a sense of place for each of Southworth’s unique properties.

This role represents Southworth and is responsible for embodying and consistently communicating Southworth’s Vision and Core Values: Deliver Extraordinary, Build Community, Dare to Be Different, and Play to Win. By providing timely and accurate feedback on active design projects, the Director of Planning & Design is responsible for ensuring standards are met regarding the style, quality, and character of each project’s design.

To be successful in this role, the Director of Planning & Design must possess and demonstrate a commitment to excellence, integrity, and strong organizational and leadership skills. With experience in multiple design segments across multiple geographies, this individual knows how to work efficiently, and maintain the core values set forth by Senior Leadership. The Director of Planning & Design must be highly motivated and willing to take responsibility for measured goals, and comfortable working in a fast-paced privately held family business. If you’re a proven leader who enjoys blending left- and right-brain thinking to drive innovation and efficiency, we want to meet you!

Responsibilities:

As Director of Planning & Design, your responsibilities include:

Strategy and Goal Setting

Help define and deliver the best management practices for the masterplan, design and architecture of each project, with a clear message and rationale outlining property-level goals, and key success metrics.
Help set and refine the Southworth design ethos; especially as it relates to new and ground-up development projects.
Establish and monitor annual goals for Design within Southworth Development; the foundations of which are Operating & Service Excellence (Deliver Extraordinary), Customer Satisfaction (Build Community), Innovation (Dare to Be Different), and Financial Performance (Play to Win).

Execution & Standards

Develop and enhance the design process, from engagement of third parties, preconstruction, budgeting, and construction administration to deliver the best product available in the most efficient manner.
Focus on creating systemic processes and standards that can scale across properties.
Build relationships with local and international design professionals to augment a range of design functions.
Responsible for ensuring completeness of all projects, to provide a design with polish and all final touches in place for initial launch.
Engage with Operations, Sales, Marketing, and Development/Construction to develop shared systems, processes, and working relationships that are applicable to each project and geography.
Work directly with these departments in an ongoing manner to ensure the successful and timely delivery of projects.
Develop design deliverables in a fashion that is readily presentable, clearly telling the story of the goals of the project and providing the necessary elements to be envisioned by any audience to which it is presented.
Provide continuous feedback and develop action plans with teams if goals are at risk
Ensure the achievement of operating standards with site inspections and strict enforcement of processes and checklists.
Identify and hire top-tier teams, and support team growth and development of third-party contractors.

Financial

Consistently work internally and across teams to ensure projects are feasible, goal-oriented, and have clear metrics to deliver profitable and timely outcomes.
Collaborate with all departments within Development to ensure directives have a clear financial goal measurable against other options.
Participate in regular meetings with design and construction professionals to ensure the proper balance of quality and expense are met within each project.
Continually identify ways to deliver exceptional product at an appropriate cost; look for areas to mitigate wastefulness, increase effectiveness, or otherwise improve spend metrics.

Personnel Management & Culture

Hire and train exceptional teams, with an eye towards being the best in the industry.
Maintain the highest standard of product.
Active participation in the training and implementation of design standards on a project level
Represent, promote and consistently communicate Southworth Development’s Core Values. “Own” the development and maintenance of a strong culture across the construction team

Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree required in Architecture, Land Planning, or other design related fields.

10+ years of experience
- Proven experience in multiple segments of design in multiple geographies
- Proven experience developing and maintaining exceptional standards for the design processes.
- Strong experience in Land Planning and Architectural master plans, design guidelines, and wholistic design initiatives.
An accomplished leader, demonstrated by a history of leading effective teams.
- Demonstrated success in building, leading, mentoring, and motivating teams; possessing the teamwork, communications, and management process skills needed for success in an evolving organization.
- A strong focus on both accountability and empathy – ensuring execution and fostering a strong culture.
A track record of developing and implementing strategic plans and an ability to maintain these plans and replicate them as the company grows.
Strong market knowledge and business insight – applies industry expertise and competitive intelligence to strategic planning of each design project.
Good instincts, political acumen, social intelligence, and strong communication and collaboration skills
Self-aware and growth-minded: open to feedback, reflection, and continuing education to gain productive insight into strengths and weaknesses.
Self-directed and proactive