DIA Design Guild

I formalized the program structure, introduced scalable processes, and implemented a CSAT measurement system to improve program effectiveness and participant satisfaction.

Key achievements include:
• Scaling the Apprenticeship Program: Formalized a structured 9-month mentorship model, improving project outcomes and skill development for junior designer apprentices.
• Mentorship & Talent Development: Recruited and managed senior designers to provide high-quality guidance for junior designers.
• Improved Project Management & Client Satisfaction: Developed formalized project management processes, leading to clearer expectations and increased satisfaction from client stakeholders.

Design Program Manager

Design Evangelist

Design Mentor & Instructor
Combining both teaching and mentoring, I have over 10,000 hours of experience.

• Served as an instructor at leading institutions, such as General Assembly, GrowthX Academy, Flatiron School, Seattle School of Visual Concepts, Product School, UC Berkeley, and Academy of Art University
• Developed curriculum for top programs, including Springboard, GrowthX Academy, Interaction Design Foundation, IxDF Bootcamps, Flatiron School, Product School, UC Berkeley, and Chegg
• Mentored through various community, bootcamp, and organizational programs

Design Educator

Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design

I overhauled school management operations, replacing outdated systems with a modern, scalable solution that improved class scheduling and operational efficiency. I also optimized design tooling and software resources, reducing costs and improving data accessibility.

Key achievements include:
• Scaling Course Offerings: Implemented a new school management system, enabling the organization to increase concurrent class capacity by 300%.
• Cost Reduction: Standardized design tools and software, eliminating inefficiencies and saving $100K annually.
• Data & Process Improvement: Applied information architecture principles to improve data accessibility and reduce data duplication by 90%.

Design Operations Manager

The Hired Guns

Worked in a fast-paced agency environment, specializing in design recruiting while also improving knowledge management for the team.

Key achievements include:
• Candidate Evaluation: Reviewed and evaluated 100+ UX designer candidate profiles and portfolios, assessing qualifications and fit for various design roles.
• Process & Knowledge Management: Built a Notion-based knowledge management system to document onboarding, create consistency in projects, and streamline the recruiting process. This significantly reduced the time required to train and onboard new employees.

Design Talent Partner

LinkedIn

I redesigned and standardized LinkedIn’s UX Design onboarding program, ensuring new UX designers could seamlessly transition into any product team and become productive faster.

Key achievements include:
• Onboarding Standardization: Designed and implemented a new UX designer onboarding program to improve ramp-up time and team integration.

IxDF - Interaction Design Foundation

• Led daily operations and strategic initiatives, implementing best practices to optimize the UX Design Bootcamp program 
• Increased member insights by 5% by instigating a regular research program
• Improved project planning and scheduling for UX Design boot camps, strategized new educational initiatives and created original UX course content

Flatiron School

I led Flatiron School’s San Francisco UX program, managing faculty and ensuring the successful graduation and job placement of cohorts of 20 design students. I introduced a cross-disciplinary collaboration program between UX and software engineering students, giving them hands-on experience working together.

Key achievements include:
• Student Success & Placement: Led Flatiron’s San Francisco UX program, ensuring strong job placement outcomes.
• Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Built a structured program for UX designers and software engineers to collaborate on projects.
• Curriculum Improvements: Implemented course changes that led to a 20% increase in exercise scores.

Design Program Director

GrowthX Academy

I built and scaled GrowthX Academy’s UX design program from the ground up, designing an industry-aligned curriculum that prepared students for real-world careers. The program achieved a 90% job placement rate, and I oversaw the development of 40+ functional prototypes for web, mobile, and IoT clients through hands-on, project-based learning.

Key achievements include:
• Program Creation & Growth: Designed and launched an industry-aligned UX design program, achieving a 90% student placement rate.
• Client Project Experience: Guided student teams in developing 40+ functional prototypes for real clients, reinforcing practical UX skills through hands-on client collaboration.

Epsilon

I led a cross-functional team of 8, including UX designers, UI designers, and content strategists, delivering solutions for 10+ B2B and B2C clients annually, including Wells Fargo, American Express, Apple, Google, Cisco, and Genentech.

Key achievements include:
• Enterprise UX Leadership: Managed UX strategy and execution for Fortune 500 clients across finance, tech, and healthcare.
• Design Systems & Efficiency: Created scalable design systems, style guides, and component libraries to improve consistency across projects.
• UX Training & Advocacy: Led client workshops to strengthen teams' understanding of customer experience best practices.

Design Manager, Digital Design

TripIt

Drove mobile and web design for a top travel app. Implemented data-driven design practices and led design reviews to ensure high-quality releases.

Lead Product Designer

I'm a design program manager with a background in UX, interaction design, and education. I bring structure to design teams and help programs run smoothly.

I've worked across both industry and education, and I’m especially drawn to roles that support design teams building thoughtful, education-focused experiences. I thrive in environments where I can contribute behind the scenes—helping teams stay aligned, focused, and connected to the needs of users and businesses.

Over my career, I've built and led design operations initiatives, UX education programs, and onboarding optimization at organizations ranging from startups to global tech companies. I’ve formalized design processes, standardized tools, and improved cross-team alignment, helping companies scale efficiently while maintaining a strong design culture.

I’m passionate about solving organizational challenges that impact design teams, whether it’s streamlining workflows, improving collaboration between teams, or developing scalable solutions for talent growth.

Always open to connecting with others (include a note) working at the intersection of design, education, and impact-driven work.

Julia DeBari

BECU

BECU, also known as Boeing Employee Credit Union, is the 4th largest credit union in the United States, and the largest community-based credit union in the country.
I conduct foundational research helping to inform and provide strategy and direction for major product initiatives like credit card, digital support strategy, business online banking, access limits for ATM and debit cards and in-person collaboration work experience. 
Leader in defining design thinking practice for the entire organization including best practices, workshop definition and templates, cohort builder and facilitation educator.

Invented the Scenario Alignment Canvas (SAC). The SAC is part kickoff workshop, part exposing assumptions and gaps in knowledge, part data collection from the team, and part creation of a research plan. The Scenario Alignment Canvas is a quick starting point to get the team aligned around a user’s scenario or goal, and determining any gaps in team knowledge and finally, determining the need to build out a full persona. 

Skills
 • Mentoring and coaching designers and researchers
 • Defining research strategy, roadmaps and plans
 • Template and process definition and creation
 • Upskilling UX team  
 • Establishing best practices
 • Using AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools for secondary research, to expedite tasks and workflow
 • Internal public speaker on user experience, research methods, career development, agile and more

Tools
Microsoft apps • Usertesting • Mural • Survey Monkey • Figma • AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Firefly

Principal UX Researcher

BlatzChatz

Jen Blatz Chatz about user experience, professional tips and tricks, UX research and strategy to help seasoned and aspiring folks up their UX game. 

BlatzChatz is where people chat about the world of user experience (UX) research, and sprinkle in a bit of prof tips and tricks. 
Jen shares her perspectives and experiences in working in user experience and navigating the sometimes rough waters and challenges of the profession. 
Jen also talks to top-notch UX pros who know their stuff and have great insights to share.

Skills
Interviewing • Presentations • Content creation • Video editing • Thumbnail design • Event coordination • Presentation • Writing

Tools 
Descript • YouTube • Figma • Google Suite • GoDaddy

Channel host and founder

UX Research and Strategy Group

UX Research and Strategy is a registered 501c3 organization devoted to teaching and exploring topics related to User Experience Research and Strategy. UXRS was created by three very talented ladies, who saw the need to address the gap in these topics in the local UX community. The hope for this group is to enrich and complement the UX design community through knowledge sharing, networking and community. Started in Dallas Texas, UXRS exploded with a global reach within a few years. The group continues to expand its UXRS community reach in countries around the world. 

Skills
Determined there was a need in the UX community to create a space for meetups and education around UX research and strategy. 
Created social media assets and campaigns from planning to writing to designing the posts.
My leadership role (as president and co-founder) of this non-profit organization consisted of organizing monthly events, creating a social media strategy and implantations plan, and leading the group's vision, growth and strategy.

Tools
Zoom • Figma • Google Suite • Trello • Mural • Mailchimp • YouTube Studio • Eclincher • Adobe tools like Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator

Outcomes
Expanded the board of directors and committee members from 3 to 12 people.
Grew the group to over 87,000 followers on LinkedIn in just over 5 years. (That's more than many companies!)
Grew all social media channels from zero to thousands of followers in just over 5 years.
Planned and led high-quality events and speakers, every month, for hundreds of attendees around the world.
Iterated on the group's mission, vision and strategy as the group grew from a local meetup to a global community, and from hundreds to tens of thousands of community members and followers.

Co-founder for one of the largest UX groups in the world

Planned events that appeal to a global audience with world-famous UX professional speakers from around the world.
Provided quality content to the UX community on a number of topics including research impact, jobs to be done and AI, career development, mixed method UX research and more.
Selected topics and speakers that are relevant to the UX research profession and for those aspiring to become UX pros.

Events Director

I expanded the board of directors and committee members from 3 to 12 people. Volunteers in various roles included technology, social media and events directors, content strategists, community engagement and graphic designers.
Led the organization into financial stability through donations and paid events.

President

Design Leadership Forum

The Design Leadership Forum's mission is to advance the practice of design leadership by fostering a community where the world’s best can learn from one another.

Member, Design Leadership Forum by InVision

Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF)

Provide guidance, advice and mentorship to students going through user experience research bootcamp and courses.

Education Mentor

Rocket Companies

Lead researcher for Rocket Mortgage, previously Quicken Loans through acquisition of Truebill. 
Conducting qualitative foundational user research to define strategy and inform product roadmaps.

Skills
Mentoring UX designers and researchers on methodologies, career opportunities and skills development.
Informing the mortgage business of user’s mental models on broad financial topics.
Connecting business units through insights to align on strategies.
Validating design concepts through concept and usability tests.
Conducting workshops to build empathy and understand each other across newly-formed teams.
One-one-interviews with professionals in B2B business-to-business space to understand their working environment, actions and pain points when interacting with our products.
Product-aligned research, ranging from discovery to generative to validation.

Tools
Microsoft apps • Usertesting • Slack • Lucid • Qualtrics • Airtable • Condens • Figma • Miro

Outcomes
Shared financially-focused discovery research that was used to inform strategy and road maps after the company acquired Truebill, a financial management app with a new user base.
Created a mental model diagram to help map an understanding of our professional user’s thoughts and actions through originating a loan.
Created a journey maps, service blue print style, outlining steps in our loan origination process, highlighting user pain points, employee interactions and opportunities to improve the process at every step. 
Visually summarized participant interviews, creating easy access for the designers to understand our users pain points, goals and expectations.
Participated in a pilot program to help cross-functional teams work together in a rapid format to produce results and designs in a 2-week sprint. This pilot is being rolled out to other teams for quick ideation and moving projects forward.  
Released a survey that had an astonishing 17% response rate, thus providing more data points to make product decisions.

Staff UX Researcher

Fidelity Investments

Led several research efforts to determine strategy and road map for company’s Digital Workplace strategy.

Principal User Experience Designer and Researcher

As a Lead UX Designer and Researcher, I worked on internal products spanning several business units. My focus was primarily internal websites and applications used by employees. 

I oversaw the strategy, research and interface design for Fidelity's "internal UX agency." My process included advising stakeholders through the complete design process of a project from defining the scope, strategy, research and UX design for websites and apps. I displayed a deep understanding of people using enterprise software and internal tools.

Skills
Conducted 40+ interviews, totally over 100 hours, to understand how employees use internal and enterprise tools for the Digital Workplace team.
Conducted research using a mixed methods approach to understand digital whiteboard use. This included contextual inquiry, one-on-one interviews, usability tests and a quantitative (Jobs to be done like) survey.
Shared my research on digital whiteboards with Microsoft’s team. This info helped inform their roadmap and whiteboard feature prioritization. 
Became the Jobs To Be Done in-house expert on research theory and practice. 
Conducted accessibility research with blind users to inform our team how our products are used by people who use screen readers and other assisted technology.
Researched and created the information architecture and taxonomy for websites and apps.
Led co-creation sessions with users to refine copy and design.
Mentored UX designers and taught them about several methods including card sorts, interviews, concept tests, survey design, competitive analysis, heuristic evaluation and usability tests. 
Worked with other departments like Security, Technology and Human Resources to research and design products, services and solutions. 
UX deliverables: task analysis, user stories, research analysis, personas, user flows, sketches, wireframes, design system, high-res mockups.

Tools
Microsoft apps • Zoom • Mural • Optimal Workshop • Figma  • Sketch • Invision • Jira • Qualtrics

Senior Experience Designer and Researcher

IxDA

Organized Meetups and events to bring the local interaction design community together to network, learn from each other and expand expertise.

IXDA Local Chapter Leader

Rackspace

As a Lead UX Designer, I worked with a cross-functional team of Product Managers, Researchers and UX Designers. I oversaw the strategy, experience design and functionality of User and Account Management (User Settings and Profile). This aspect of Rackspace's portal is used by thousands of customers and employees every day. 

• Led a team of designers, guiding them through and implementing a UX Process and helping them make strong design decisions
• Proposed UX strategies and developed a plan to execute steps in that strategy 
• Mentored junior UX designers and assisted them through their projects and career development
• Acted as the team's scrum coach through the agile process of software development and design 
• Proposed a UX Process to be implemented by the UX Designers, Researchers and Information Development writers. This high-profile UX Process was created in collaboration with other Researchers and UX Designers based on research, workshops, iterative feedback and design 
• Led workshops and meetings to keep remote team members aligned, engaged and designing to their full potential

UX deliverables: use cases, designed research-ready assets, user stories, design strategy, sketches, wireframes and high-resolution mockups with tools like Mural.ly, Sketch and Invision

Lead UX Designer

Capital One

At Capital One, I conducted research, analyzed information and provided context for key design recommendations. I used a variety of research methods to improve digital and non-digital channels for this major financial corporation. They products I focused on were Auto Navigator, and internal servicing tools used by employees for home and auto loans.

• Performed qualitative research by conducting contextual and exploratory interviews, card sorts for taxonomy, usability testing and concept reviews
• Conducted usability testing in a variety of settings including in the lab, remotely and unmoderated 
• Researched, developed and designed personas for consumer arm of lending business.
• Affinitized and synthesized data to build deliverables like charts and reports to convey insights to business partners 
• Advised teams and fascilitated workshops for research methods including Service Design Blueprints

Research methods: contextual inquiry, card sorts for taxonomy, usability tests, ethnographic observation, concept testing and in-person interviews

Experience Design Researcher

Lead UX Researcher, whose talents span from leadership, strategy, research, sketches, wireframes, high-resolution mockups to design. My user-centered design approach starts with empathy, is built on a foundation of research, and helps teams define product strategy.

• UX Community leader, co-founding the UX Research and Strategy group.
• Speaker at international UX conferences and meetups across the country and universities.
• Host and founder of BlatzChatz on Youtube

Portfolio:
► www.jenniferblatzdesign.com
► https://dribbble.com/jnblatz 
► https://www.youtube.com/@BlatzChatz

My primary focus is the user – aligning business goals with user needs is just gravy.

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