As a UX/Product Design leader, I’m passionate about building both people and products—delivering user-centered, impactful solutions through holistic design thinking.

I’ve led teams across startups and collaborated with Fortune 500 clients, including Amex and Goldman Sachs, during my time at a digital agency. I’m dedicated to mentoring designers, simplifying complexities, and fostering collaboration to create designs to drive business success.

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Experiences

HEAD OF DESIGN | VALON, NYC
08/2021 - Current

Design Leadership: Established the design discipline at Valon from the ground up.

Building and leading a multidisciplinary team of 11 (now 7 after 2023 adjustments).
Implemented the user-centered design process from discovery to engineering handoff, significantly improving usability and product quality.
Mentored and upskilled the team, achieving a 2.41-year average tenure in a 4.5 year startup

Business Growth: Scaled user experiences for key platforms, driving company growth from 200+ to 320K serviced loans in 3 years,

Instrumental in scaling the company from $0 revenue in 2021 to $30 million in 2023.

Contributing to the growth from Series A to Series C with a $1 billion valuation.

Innovate: Directed the design process for AI-driven note summaries and automated mortgage assistance workflows, ensuring user-centric solutions that enhanced operational efficiency and aligned with business goals.

Brand & Design Systems: Spearheaded a company-wide brand refresh and established a unified design system, securing executive buy-in and enhancing overall product coherence.

Efficiency improvement: Overhauled data onboarding tools, reducing engineering support time from 287 hours to 5.11 hours per month and cutting operations time by 70%.

DIRECTOR, EXPERIENC DESIGN | DIGITAS NY
06/2013 - 07/2021 

Product Redesign: Led the redesign of BlackRock Investor Pulse, increasing website time spent by 200% and boosting organic search by 30%.

SaaS Platform Development: Directed the redesign of TravelClick’s hotel booking platform, resulting in a 23% increase in direct bookings and a 155% increase in mobile bookings.

Native App Design: Designed Nissan's payment app, reducing loan payment errors by 36% and decreasing call volume, significantly improving customer satisfaction.

Client Collaboration: Worked closely with Fortune 500 clients, securing stakeholder buy-in and aligning UX strategies with business goals. Notable clients included Aetna, American Express, BlackRock, and Goldman Sachs.

PRODUCT & DESIGN LEAD | BOMODA MEDIA
07/2012 - 04/2013

Market Penetration: Led a cross-functional team to establish a luxury media presence in China, growing the newsletter subscriber base from 8K to 70K in 6 months.

Team Building: Recruited and led a talented team across design, marketing, and analytics.

Strategic Partnerships: Secured collaborations with Chinese eCommerce giants like Meilishuo, driving significant traffic and market presence.

PRODUCT & DESIGN LEAD FOR NATIONAL GROUP | XO GROUP INC
11/2011 - 06/2012

Portfolio Management: Managed product creation for a $26M national product portfolio, transforming popular offerings into scalable solutions that supported
60+ campaigns annually.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnered with editorial and tech teams to integrate social media and ad tech solutions into advertising products.

FOUNDER OF THE KNOT CHINA | INTERNATIONAL BRAND DIRECTOR | XO GROUP INC
09/2009 - 11/2011

Team Growth: Expanded the design team from 2 to 8+ employees to mentoring the entire early Chinese team of 70 and establishing strong collaboration between China and the US office.

Brand Development: Played a key role in establishing The Knot's presence in China, driving the brand's expansion and market influence.

Design leadership: managed the local design team in Beijing to support all brand and product design activities.

09/2003 - 08/2009

Spanning from internships to art director and creative director positions.

Skills

Team leadership, recruitment, coaching, cross-functional collaboration, user-centered design, user experience, creative direction, UX/UI, design systems, user research, interaction design, visual design, interface design, agile methodology, staffing, resource management, process development.

Education

BFA | Parsons New School of Design, NYC

Language

Mandarin Chinese
English

Tools

Figma
Adobe Photoshop
UserInterview
UserBrain
Maze
Airtable
Google sheets
Datadog
Fullstory

Giving back on APDList.org 
Mentored emerging design talents for over 2,100 minutes, earning  5-star unsolicited ratings. See My profile 

Ting-ai Marin