Dave Malouf

Builder of operating systems for design and research organizations. I turn ambiguous mandates into scalable infrastructure: intake frameworks, knowledge systems, program governance, and the cross-functional trust that holds it together. Nearly 30 years of practice leadership across healthcare, finance, and enterprise tech, most recently as Chief of Staff and Design Operations leader inside Walmart Global Design. I do my best work when the organization needs something built from scratch.

Career Break (2026-08 – Present)

Actively targeting DesignOps leadership and Chief of Staff roles following a Walmart reduction in force.

Director, Design Operations at Walmart (2026-01 – 2026-08)

Senior advisor and operational anchor for Walmart Global Design, a newly centralized 500 person design organization; provided expertise driven support across DesignOps, program management, and practice leadership during organizational transition.

• Drove process standardization and governance frameworks to align distributed design practice with enterprise wide delivery cadence.

Director, UX Design, Platforms, Systems, and AI; Chief of Staff at Walmart (2025-05 – 2026-01)

Led UX design for Squiggly, Walmart's internal agentic AI orchestration platform, within the People Product and Design organization; delivered a comprehensive design system with engineering integrated documentation that enabled consistent AI experience patterns at scale.

• Served as Chief of Staff to the design executive: owned operating rhythm, communications, and cross-functional coordination while establishing design language and component standards for a first of kind internal AI product.

Distinguished UX Designer, Design Operations; Chief of Staff at Walmart (2024-11 – 2025-04)

• Built an Airtable based operational platform from scratch, custom data architecture and interface layer, mapping workflows for an 80 person People Product and Design team while serving as Chief of Staff to the design executive.
• Managed resource planning, hiring goals, and strategy across pillars; rewrote job descriptions as candidate facing narratives, improving attract rate and diversity of applicant pool.

Career Break (2023-01 – 2024-11)

Director, Design Operations at Teladoc Health (2021-08 – 2023-01)

• Integrated design organization into SAFe Agile implementation through cross functional collaboration with Product and Engineering leadership.
• Built program management practice to scale: intake frameworks, portfolio visibility, prioritization governance, and design side PI planning.
• Redesigned interviewing process, rubrics, and career path documentation; increased representation across gender and POC dimensions.

Director, Design Operations; Chief of Staff at Northwestern Mutual (2019-12 – 2021-06)

• Built Design Program Management practice from 0 to 10 in under 12 months; managed team of 10 DPMs and Design System team of 6.
• Secured budget to 3x Design System team; recruited and onboarded new Director to own it.
• Led research, analysis, and strategic initiatives that doubled team Pulse Survey score.
• Owned core BusinessOps for design executive as Chief of Staff: budget, vendor management, PeopleOps, communications, and executive meeting management, increasing their availability for peer and C suite engagement.
• Developed narrative prototype validated by 20 customer Advisory Council, triggering immediate roadmap changes and onboarding content revisions.

Independent Consultant at Dave Malouf Design (2016-10 – 2019-12)

• Advised JPMorgan, Visa, World Bank, Zalando, BCG Tokyo, and Pebble Road Singapore on DesignOps strategy and planning.
• Provided career coaching for design and product leaders.
• Lead Instructor, User Experience Design Immersive, General Assembly (Jan 2018 to Aug 2018): co-led instruction across 2.5 cohorts, approximately 25 weeks.
• Temporary Art Director, SCAD Online Marketing (6 months): led design during a full site replatform and redesign.

Principal Experience Strategist at HP Enterprise (2015-05 – 2016-10)

• Developed experience strategy for enterprise technology infrastructure products; led cross functional workshops and narrative prototype development.

Head of Interaction Design at Rackspace (2013-06 – 2015-05)

• Led interaction design practice for managed cloud infrastructure platform; contributed to a successful private equity acquisition.

Co-founder at Peerloft (2012 – 2013)

Professor of Interaction Design, Industrial Design Department at Savannah College of Art and Design (2008 – 2012-06)

Manager, Product Design at Intralinks (2003 – 2006)

Sr. Interaction Designer at Motorola Solutions (2006 – 2008)

Sr. UI Designer at Documentum (2001 – 2003)

Director, Info Architecture and Strategy at Vizooal (1998 – 2001)

B.A. in Anthropology – University of California, Berkeley

Continuing Education in Industrial Design – Pratt Institute

Physical Computing and Computational Design – Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design