Design Director

Building on SSE's internationally recognized commitment to the arts, this role represents an opportunity to further shape one of the world's most advanced intersections of artistic practice, research, innovation, and education. The Executive Director will work closely with academic leadership, artists, donors, researchers, students, and external partners.    About the Role  The Executive Director will provide both strategic and operational leadership for the Center for Art & Innovation and serve as a key bridge between the worlds of art, academia, philanthropy, and innovation.  Reporting to the Center’s Scientific Director, the Executive Director will play a central role in translating the Center’s vision into impactful programs, partnerships, and initiatives. The ambition is to further strengthen the Stockholm School of Economics' international profile.  The role combines cultural leadership, organizational development, fundraising, community building, and program execution. It requires a leader who is comfortable operating across institutional boundaries and building relationships with artists, researchers, students, donors, and external partners.  Key Responsibilities  Strategic Leadership and Center Development  Shape and implement the long-term vision and strategy for the Center for Art & Innovation  Translate strategic ambitions into sustainable programs, partnerships, and initiatives.  Position the Center as a leading international platform connecting art, research, innovation, and society.  Drive the development of organizational structures, processes, and ways of working that support long-term growth and impact.  Arts and Program Development  Curate the Center’s artistic programs and activities, currently developed by the Art Initiative. Read more about the Art Initiative here.  Oversee the delivery of artistic programs, exhibitions, residencies, seminars, performances, and public events.  Expand and diversify artistic engagement across disciplines, including visual arts, music, and emerging creative practices.  Build relationships with artists, curators, museums, galleries, and cultural institutions in Sweden and internationally.  Coordinate the art related educational and research initiatives  Coordinate, further develop and integrate the portfolio of educational offering of the arts in the curriculum of SSE’s students and Executive Education.  Support coordination across the community of scholars in the School who work at the intersection of the arts and business, and support collaboration with other Schools globally.  Fundraising and External Relations  Develop and steward relationships with donors, foundations, patrons, and strategic partners.  Identify and secure funding opportunities that support the Center’s growth and long-term sustainability.  Prepare funding proposals, donor communications, and impact reporting.  Serve as an ambassador for the Center and SSE in national and international contexts.  Operations, Planning, and Governance  Lead the day-to-day operations of the Center.  Assume overall responsibility for budgeting, planning, reporting, and resource allocation.  Ensure effective coordination across SSE departments, centers, and external collaborators.  Establish clear structures for project management, evaluation, and organizational follow-up.  Community Building and Outreach  Foster engagement across the SSE community, connecting faculty, students, researchers, executive education participants, and external practitioners.  Support interdisciplinary collaborations and new forms of public engagement.  Strengthen the Center’s visibility through communications and awareness.  Build networks that connect artistic, academic, entrepreneurial, and societal perspectives.  Candidate Profile  We are looking for an accomplished leader with a strong track record in the cultural sector.  The ideal candidate will have:  A genuine interest and curiosity in the role of the arts in relation to research, education, innovation, and societal development.  Leadership experience within a museum, cultural institution, foundation, gallery, university-based arts organization, or comparable environment.  A strong network within the arts and cultural sectors.  Experience in fundraising, donor relations, sponsorship, or partnership development.  Strong operational and organizational capabilities.  Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and relationship-building skills.  Other  The recruitment involves assessment tests, interviews and a reference check. Background checks will be conducted on final candidates. We encourage you to apply promptly as we are actively reviewing applications on an ongoing basis.  About the Stockholm School of Economics The Stockholm School of Economics is ranked as the top business school in the Nordic and Baltic countries and enjoys a strong international reputation. World-class research forms the foundation of our educational offering, which includes Bachelor, Master, PhD, MBA, and Executive Education programs. Through creativity and collaboration, the Stockholm School of Economics provides an environment where ambitious students and accomplished researchers meet to address contemporary challenges within business and economics, particularly those concerning sustainability, diversity and innovation. SSE is a member of the Stockholm Dual Career Network (SDCN). Through SDCN, partners of international recruits are offered professional support in establishing their careers in Sweden. SSE is committed to a balanced gender distribution and values a variety of backgrounds and experiences among our employees. We therefore welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, disability, sexual orientation, age, or religion or other beliefs. We strive to have a fair and inclusive recruitment process.

TL;DR We're looking for someone who has thrived in a hypergrowth startup environment and wants to do it again — someone who genuinely loved the part that most people only tolerate. You'll work side-by-side with our founder-CEO to scale his effectiveness, shaping strategy, driving execution, and making every function better than you found it. This is an intense, high-proximity role with very little structure, very little guidance, and enormous leverage for the right person. Why Lovable? Lovable lets anyone and everyone build software with any language. From solopreneurs to Fortune 100 teams, millions of people use Lovable to transform raw ideas into real products - fast. We are at the forefront of a foundational shift in software creation, which means you have an unprecedented opportunity to change the way the digital world works. Lovable-built applications and websites are visited hundreds of millions of times a month, and our enterprise footprint is compounding fast. And we’re just getting started. We’re a small, talent-dense team building a generation-defining company from Stockholm. We value extreme ownership, high velocity, and low-ego collaboration. We seek out people who care deeply, ship fast, and are eager to make a dent in the world. What we’re looking for 10+ years of professional experience across high-intensity environments. This role has no manager, no structured feedback loops, and no one scoping your work. You are expected to see what needs to happen across strategy, operations, communications, and people and drive it without being asked. MBB consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Bain), investment banking (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan) or similar foundation. You learned structured problem-solving and executive communication under pressure. The CEO is a prolific, high-velocity idea generator who moves across product, GTM, partnerships, brand, and org design, sometimes within the same conversation. Ideas arrive faster than any single person could execute. Your job is to identify which ones carry real strategic weight, and sequence them against competing priorities. Ex-Founder, Chief of Staff, Head of BizOps/Strategy, or senior operations generalist experience at a hypergrowth startup who has lived the chaos firsthand. This company changes direction at the speed of the market it's defining. The strategic priority from Monday's leadership meeting may be reframed by Wednesday because a new partnership, competitive signal, or product insight emerged. This role is for someone who gets energy from moving fast inside ambiguity and can bring others along with them. Experience at companies that scaled revenue dramatically in compressed timeframes (think Ramp, SpaceX/Tesla, TikTok/ByteDance, OpenAI, Stripe, Anduril, Anthropic, Databricks, Figma, Scale AI). Lovable's leadership team has been assembled at lighting speed. You’ve seen this before before and how to support the CEO in building a strong leadership team. You will often be the connective tissue, the translator and mediator. Executive-grade communication. You can produce investor memos, board updates, internal comms, and candidate briefs that are polished, high-signal, and fast. You'll shape how the CEO communicates to the company, the board, and candidates — translating high-speed thinking into prose that lands with precision. Much of your impact will be invisible to the org and attributed to others. That needs to be fine with you. Diplomatic backbone. You navigate leadership tensions, headcount negotiations, and hard conversations with both empathy and candor. Comfortable with founder-speed proximity and intensity. This means daily co-working sessions with the CEO on his schedule, in-person in Stockholm, no remote exceptions. The team, customers, partners and investors are distributed across Stockholm, Boston, San Francisco and London. Some sessions run long and often happen outside of business hours. AI fluency. You actively use AI tools in your workflows and see them as a leverage multiplier, not a novelty (experience building AI workflows and agents is a strong plus) Coaching background is a meaningful plus. Executive coaching certification, or equivalent. What you’ll do In one sentence: Be the CEO’s strategic right hand — own the operating rhythm of the company, drive cross-functional alignment, and lead the highest-stakes initiatives from strategy through execution. Serve as a sounding board and sparring partner to the CEO on company strategy, competitive positioning, fundraising, org design, and executive hiring Own the cadence of the company — leadership meetings, leadership offsites, support all-hands preparation, goal-setting, planning, and cross-functional accountability systems Shape CEO communications for internal audiences (all-hands, leadership updates, sensitive HR matters) and external audiences (investor calls, candidate-facing materials) Drive alignment across the Leadership team and functional leads — mediate tensions constructively and ensure leadership decisions translate into execution Lead high-stakes special projects end-to-end — executive hiring processes, competitive intelligence, accountability frameworks Design and maintain function-level KPIs, headcount planning models, and performance dashboards that keep the leadership team honest Build and iterate on AI-powered workflows (multi-agent systems, Slack triage, meeting prep, action-item tracking) to scale the Office of the CEO This role is not for you if You expect to work regular working hours. Our teams, partners, investors and customers span Stockholm, San Francisco, Boston and London. You need clear role boundaries and a well-defined job description to do your best work You've never worked in a high-growth startup and are drawn to the idea of it more than the reality You take it personally when work you've invested in gets deprioritized or redirected abruptly You need regular recognition from your principal to stay motivated You expect the person you support to hand-hold you, or model the behaviors and systems you're implementing for the rest of the org You want a 12-month stepping-stone into a functional leadership role, this role is its own thing, and it demands full commitment to the craft of it How we hire Intro call with a member of the recruitment team to explore fit and alignment Call with a member of the CEO Office In-person meeting with the CEO if Stockholm-based, virtual otherwise Call with a member of the Leadership Team In-person work simulation with the CEO