Job Description

Global Director of Instructional Design

The Global Director of Instructional Design leads a high-performing, multi-level instructional design organization responsible for delivering world-class learning experiences for enterprise, higher-education, and workforce clients under the direction of the SVP of Operations.

This role oversees a global team of up to 15 Learning Experience Designers (Associate, LXD, Senior LXD), ensuring excellence in content strategy, storyboard quality, client experience, and cross-functional collaboration.

The Director sets the creative and instructional vision for the team, drives innovation in learning design, enforces quality standards, and ensures that all deliverables reflect the organization’s mission, brand, and pedagogical rigor. This leader partners closely with Product, Sales, Operations, and Development to create high-impact solutions and continuously improve processes, tools, and team capability.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Leadership & Vision

  • Define and evolve the global instructional design strategy, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and the mission of creating instructionally sound, creative, visually compelling, and immersive learning

  • Establish, implement, document, and enforce the highest quality standards and design frameworks

  • Drive innovation in processes, methodologies, artificial intelligence, and the ELB learning tech stack

  • Integrate and codify AI processes and tools as part of continuous improvement for both internal and client delivery

2. Team Leadership & Talent Development

  • Lead, mentor, and develop a global team of LXDs across multiple levels, ensuring clear growth pathways and performance standards

  • Build a culture of creativity, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement

  • Oversee workload allocation, project staffing, and capacity planning

  • Provide coaching on client communication, content synthesis, visual storytelling, and instructional strategy

3. Quality Assurance & Instructional Excellence

  • Serve as the final authority on instructional quality

  • Oversee content verification, storyboard reviews, and adherence to accessibility standards

  • Ensure storyboards are appropriately scoped, realistic, thorough, and complete before development

4. Client & Stakeholder Leadership

  • Act as the executive-level partner for key clients, ensuring learning objectives are met and exceeded

  • Guide teams in building and maintaining strong client relationships

  • Support Sales with scoping, pitching, and strategic client conversations

5. Cross-Functional Collaboration

  • Partner with eLearning Development leaders to ensure seamless handoff from storyboard to development

  • Collaborate with Development, PMO, Product, Marketing, and Operations to align instructional design with organizational initiatives

  • Lead cross-departmental improvements in workflows, tools, templates, and design systems

6. Operational Excellence

  • Establish and manage KPIs for quality, efficiency, client satisfaction, and team performance

  • Standardize processes for content assessment, SME collaboration, developer notes, and storyboard structure

  • Ensure global consistency in instructional design practices while allowing for regional nuance and creativity

Required Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience in instructional design, learning experience design, or learning product leadership

  • Proven success leading multi-level design teams in fast-paced, client-facing environments

  • Deep expertise in instructional design methodologies, learning science, and digital learning ecosystems

  • Demonstrated ability to manage complex client relationships and navigate ambiguity

  • Strong communication, storytelling, and visual design sensibilities

  • Experience with accessibility standards (508/WCAG), learning technologies, and cross-functional collaboration

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience scaling global teams and building operational systems for creative organizations

  • Background in enterprise learning, higher education, or workforce development

  • Familiarity with AI-enhanced learning design workflows and emerging learning technologies