leigh@arredondo.design || 206-280-4007 || www.linkedin.com/in/leigharredondo
Professional Profile
A versatile, strategic UX leader with 20+ years experience driving human-centered design of products and services that your customers want, use, and love. Adept at developing and executing experience strategies that incorporate customer insights to deliver business objectives. Work collaboratively to align your business strategy and user needs, delivering creative and innovative human experiences across the UX ecosystem.
Excel in building and mentoring high performing, multi-functional, business savvy UX teams. Develop UX teams that are more effective and influential through targeted communication and effective relationship-building skills. Create lasting change in user-centered design process, organizational structure, greater valuation of UX and elevation of a teams’ UX skillset and outputs.
Proven competencies include
Professional Experience
Arredondo Design, UX Strategy & Leadership Consulting, Seattle, WA
February 2017 - Present
December 2007 – April 2013
Owner & Principle
Work strategically with organizations, from start-ups to Fortune 10’s, to devise UX strategy, insights, and solutions with a focus on aligning business objectives and user needs.
Achievements:
UX Cake Podcast, Seattle, WA www.uxcake.co
Feb 2018 – present (Temporary hiatus March 2020 through March 2021)
Founder and Host
UX Cake is a podcast for user experience professionals who want to be more effective and happy in their career. Every episode we deliver practical advice on how to get the best outcomes for our work, our teams, our users, and our careers in UX. Our aim is to help the growing UX community become stronger and more effective, by sharing the experience and expertise from leaders in the field.
Achievements:
Spruce Up Inc., Seattle, WA
Jul 2018 – Jul 2019
Head of UX
Early stage start-up, started in 2017 in the Madrona Ventures Lab. Spruce Up is an online home furnishing and decor retailer that curates unique shopping experiences for each customer using a proprietary Style Genome. We built an immersive and engaging shopping adventure that featured hundreds of personalized product recommendations. Responsible for the UX team and processes, product experience, design stylist tools, and marketing design. Spruce Up is now Style Genome
Achievements:
MetaBrite Inc, Seattle, WA
Feb 2016 – Feb 2018
UX Director
Led research & design for a start-up that delivered an automated, machine-learning solution for collecting and categorizing consumer purchase data. Wore many hats in both leadership and hands-on research and design. Worked with data scientists to bring a human-centered and design thinking approach to our machine learning models, identifying opportunities to improve both input and output based on human behavior and user expectations. Partnered with the executive team on product strategy and roadmaps for multiple aspects of the business.
Amazon, Seattle, WA
October 2015 - Dec 2015
Head of UX, Consumables
Led the UX team for Consumables Customer Experience at Amazon, where the mission is to make shopping for everyday items effortless. My team supported multiple verticals and programs such as AmazonFamily, Subscribe & Save, Baby Registry, Treasure Truck. The role was both tactical and strategic, from managing the day-to-day design operations, to developing design initiatives for big innovation within the consumables space for Amazon customers.
Received patent for Subscribe & Save subscription UI, and
Amazon, Seattle, WA
April 2013 - October 2015
Lead UX Manager, Kindle Content; Amazon
Lead a diverse team of UX designers, art directors, production managers, and interns, in our mission to create innovative and intuitive experiences that help authors expand their audiences around the world, and help readers discover new content. I brought a user-centered approach to creating and implementing customer experiences across a diverse set of complex publishing tools. We launched Kindle Scout, Kindle First, Kindle Worlds, Amazon Enterprise Publishing, and Write On, re-design of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with print integration, Crossing Translation, and more author and publisher experiences.
Design @ Amazon Leadership:
Digital Railroad, Seattle, WA
February 2006 to December 2007
User Experience Director
Created and managed a UX design team for a start-up web platform for photographers and stock photo site. Through research and insight-driven design, I integrated UX strategy into the business and product development. I also remained hands-on in product design and research while directing and mentoring a cross-functional team of design and content.
Getty Images Inc. Seattle, WA
2001 to 2006
UX Group Lead
Led online interaction design for multiple e-commerce websites of Getty Images, a multi-billion dollar global company. I worked with global cross-functional teams, leading the design of key functional areas of the e-commerce website, including searching, purchasing, and downloading of digital media, as well as internal customer service tools.
Sierra Online - Havas Interactive, Bellevue, WA
1998 – 2001
Product Design Manager
Managed product design & research team for Sierra Home (division of Sierra Online); oversaw design and release of 20+ consumer software titles including 3D Home Designer and 3D Landscape Designer.
Prior Positions
Senior UI Designer, Art Director, Interactive and Print Designer
Designed and prototyped UI navigation, functionality and visual design for a top-selling consumer software product. Created high-end graphic design, information design, interaction design, and illustration. Projects included print marketing, branding, packaging & catalogs, websites, video and interactive media.
Education
SFSU, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Bachelor of Arts, Film with emphasis in Directing and Producing
UX Community & Teaching
Teaching: School of Visual Concepts (SVC), Seattle, UX Research (UX Certificate Program)
Mentoring: Hexagon, mentoring organization for women in UX. Duke University’s DTech mentoring program for women in technology majors. SVC mentoring program for UX certificate students. Amazon Design Mentoring program.
Guest Lectures:
University of Washington HCDE Program, What is UX Strategy
Seattle Central Design Program, Learning the UX story boarding process
A versatile, strategic UX leader with 20+ years experience driving human-centered design of products and services that your customers want, use, and love. Adept at developing and executing experience strategies that incorporate customer insights to deliver business objectives. Work collaboratively to align your business strategy and user needs, delivering creative and innovative human experiences across the UX ecosystem.
Excel in building and mentoring high performing, multi-functional, business savvy UX teams. Develop UX teams that are more effective and influential through targeted communication and effective relationship-building skills. Create lasting change in user-centered design process, organizational structure, greater valuation of UX and elevation of a teams’ UX skillset and outputs.
Proven competencies include
- Build and develop high performing teams
- Create processes that enable UX teams to be more effective and scalable
- Champion and implement user-centered design process across the organization
- Bring credibility and marketability to the UX function, increasing the demand and willingness to invest in UX
- Lead and facilitate from inception to execution
- Develop user insights-driven experience strategy
- Build and facilitate collaboration across siloed teams
- Strategic change agent, consistently creating positive, sustainable change
Professional Experience
Arredondo Design, UX Strategy & Leadership Consulting, Seattle, WA
February 2017 - Present
December 2007 – April 2013
Owner & Principle
Work strategically with organizations, from start-ups to Fortune 10’s, to devise UX strategy, insights, and solutions with a focus on aligning business objectives and user needs.
- Work with in-house teams, through hands-on training, to develop their own user research and UX strategy capabilities in combination with excellent design skillsets.
- Facilitate design sprints, collaborative working sessions, and other cross-team workshops to accelerate collaboration and results
Achievements:
- Brooks Running (Oct 2019 - present) - Heading up UX for Digital Products, including year+-long website redesign (still in implementation). Hire, manage, and mentor UX team, implement a UX research strategy, and elevate the UX discipline at the company. Within one year, I have driven increased effectiveness and influence of the Digital Products UX team through personally building cross-functional relationships and setting up structures for the entire UX team do the same, implemented a data-driven UX process, developed a cross-team research & insights hub, and developed UX strategy including implementation of UX-focused KPIs, building a foundation the Digital Products team can build up as they gain UX maturity.
- Worked with design agencies and corporate product teams to lead strategic product design & research. Highly complex web & mobile applications for many clients including Amazon Alexa, Blink Interactive, Garrigan-Lyman, T-Mobile, Microsoft, Qualcomm Mobile, Windermere Real Estate, and more.
- Recruit, develop, and lead multi-functional UX teams, both full-time as well as project-focused freelance teams, at companies and agencies of all sizes.
UX Cake Podcast, Seattle, WA www.uxcake.co
Feb 2018 – present (Temporary hiatus March 2020 through March 2021)
Founder and Host
UX Cake is a podcast for user experience professionals who want to be more effective and happy in their career. Every episode we deliver practical advice on how to get the best outcomes for our work, our teams, our users, and our careers in UX. Our aim is to help the growing UX community become stronger and more effective, by sharing the experience and expertise from leaders in the field.
Achievements:
- The podcast launched in February 2018 and has an audience of many thousands of UX pros around the globe.
- I have had the opportunity to share my conversations with well-known industry icons such as Don Norman and Jaime Levy, as well as many, many innovative and creative emerging voices of global leaders and experts.
Spruce Up Inc., Seattle, WA
Jul 2018 – Jul 2019
Head of UX
Early stage start-up, started in 2017 in the Madrona Ventures Lab. Spruce Up is an online home furnishing and decor retailer that curates unique shopping experiences for each customer using a proprietary Style Genome. We built an immersive and engaging shopping adventure that featured hundreds of personalized product recommendations. Responsible for the UX team and processes, product experience, design stylist tools, and marketing design. Spruce Up is now Style Genome
Achievements:
- First launch of MVP
- Complete redesign of Machine learning-powered interface
- Site was a finalist for Geekwire’s best UX Design in 2019
MetaBrite Inc, Seattle, WA
Feb 2016 – Feb 2018
UX Director
Led research & design for a start-up that delivered an automated, machine-learning solution for collecting and categorizing consumer purchase data. Wore many hats in both leadership and hands-on research and design. Worked with data scientists to bring a human-centered and design thinking approach to our machine learning models, identifying opportunities to improve both input and output based on human behavior and user expectations. Partnered with the executive team on product strategy and roadmaps for multiple aspects of the business.
Amazon, Seattle, WA
October 2015 - Dec 2015
Head of UX, Consumables
Led the UX team for Consumables Customer Experience at Amazon, where the mission is to make shopping for everyday items effortless. My team supported multiple verticals and programs such as AmazonFamily, Subscribe & Save, Baby Registry, Treasure Truck. The role was both tactical and strategic, from managing the day-to-day design operations, to developing design initiatives for big innovation within the consumables space for Amazon customers.
Received patent for Subscribe & Save subscription UI, and
Amazon, Seattle, WA
April 2013 - October 2015
Lead UX Manager, Kindle Content; Amazon
Lead a diverse team of UX designers, art directors, production managers, and interns, in our mission to create innovative and intuitive experiences that help authors expand their audiences around the world, and help readers discover new content. I brought a user-centered approach to creating and implementing customer experiences across a diverse set of complex publishing tools. We launched Kindle Scout, Kindle First, Kindle Worlds, Amazon Enterprise Publishing, and Write On, re-design of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with print integration, Crossing Translation, and more author and publisher experiences.
Design @ Amazon Leadership:
- Member of the global UX Leadership group
- Global Amazon UX conference committee
- Led the UX mentorship program, grew mentor enrollment by 10% percent in 6 months
- Participated in cross-organizational CXR’s, Customer Experience Reviews
- Consulted with teams across Amazon through weekly office hours
Digital Railroad, Seattle, WA
February 2006 to December 2007
User Experience Director
Created and managed a UX design team for a start-up web platform for photographers and stock photo site. Through research and insight-driven design, I integrated UX strategy into the business and product development. I also remained hands-on in product design and research while directing and mentoring a cross-functional team of design and content.
Getty Images Inc. Seattle, WA
2001 to 2006
UX Group Lead
Led online interaction design for multiple e-commerce websites of Getty Images, a multi-billion dollar global company. I worked with global cross-functional teams, leading the design of key functional areas of the e-commerce website, including searching, purchasing, and downloading of digital media, as well as internal customer service tools.
Sierra Online - Havas Interactive, Bellevue, WA
1998 – 2001
Product Design Manager
Managed product design & research team for Sierra Home (division of Sierra Online); oversaw design and release of 20+ consumer software titles including 3D Home Designer and 3D Landscape Designer.
Prior Positions
Senior UI Designer, Art Director, Interactive and Print Designer
Designed and prototyped UI navigation, functionality and visual design for a top-selling consumer software product. Created high-end graphic design, information design, interaction design, and illustration. Projects included print marketing, branding, packaging & catalogs, websites, video and interactive media.
Education
SFSU, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Bachelor of Arts, Film with emphasis in Directing and Producing
UX Community & Teaching
Teaching: School of Visual Concepts (SVC), Seattle, UX Research (UX Certificate Program)
Mentoring: Hexagon, mentoring organization for women in UX. Duke University’s DTech mentoring program for women in technology majors. SVC mentoring program for UX certificate students. Amazon Design Mentoring program.
Guest Lectures:
University of Washington HCDE Program, What is UX Strategy
Seattle Central Design Program, Learning the UX story boarding process