Leslie Black

Senior Product Designer with 6+ years leading end-to-end design for complex enterprise SaaS and platform products. Specializes in simplifying complex systems, translating user research into product strategy, and driving measurable business outcomes through thoughtful, human-centered design. Known for end-to-end ownership, from discovery and strategy through final delivery, and for building trust across PMs, engineers, data scientists, and executive stakeholders alike.

Comfortable operating with autonomy in fast-moving environments and equally effective mentoring teams and influencing organizational design practices.

Senior Experience Designer at VML (Ford Motor Company) (2023-01 – Present)

Led product design for Ford's consumer and dealer-facing digital platforms, managing a cross-functional team of designers, UX specialists, strategists, and copywriters across two flagship products.

• Drove a 75% increase in online bookings for Ford's Service Reservation platform, contributing to 35M+ completed reservations — the primary digital channel for dealer service intake across Ford's national network.
• Spearheaded end-to-end UX and UI design for the mobile Technician Portal from discovery through launch, meeting adoption metrics and interaction targets every quarter; ongoing feedback sessions continue to drive new features.
• Served as primary design lead for core platform products, defining product vision, long-term experience strategy, and execution roadmap in close partnership with PMs and engineering.
• Designed and validated complex multi-step workflows spanning scheduling, diagnostics, and service management, reducing friction at critical handoff points in the service journey.
• Introduced AI-assisted research workflows including a custom AI agent for trend identification, compressing insight generation timelines and improving research-to-roadmap speed.
• Applied Amplitude analytics and experimentation frameworks to identify conversion and retention opportunities, turning behavioral data into prioritized roadmap decisions.
• Contributed to and scaled the Ford Motion Design System, improving UI consistency and accelerating feature delivery across product teams.
• Facilitated executive design reviews and stakeholder workshops, influencing product direction and investment priorities at the leadership level.
• Built high-fidelity prototypes in Figma and Figma Make to support usability testing and accelerate cross-functional alignment.
• Mentored team members, championing human-centered design practices and elevating design quality across the organization.

Experience Designer at VML (Ford Global Data & Analytics) (2021-05 – 2023-01)

Embedded within Ford's Global Data & Analytics team to introduce and operationalize human-centered design, leading a cross-functional group of data scientists, subject matter experts, analytics researchers, and developers.

• Delivered a centralized cost-savings management platform used by hundreds of employees — directly enabling multi-million dollar material cost reduction initiatives by surfacing visibility and prioritization gaps.
• Led human-centered design across the full research lifecycle: 24 user interviews, 300+ data points, surveys, card sorting, usability testing, synthesis into personas, journeys, and strategic recommendations.
• Automated role-based reporting and metrics for each user group, eliminating redundant manual tasks and saving managers 8+ hours weekly previously spent compiling reports by hand.
• Designed and developed comprehensive onboarding tutorials and in-product documentation, significantly reducing new user training time across global teams.
• Introduced and operationalized human-centered design practices across a historically tech-driven team, upskilling members to sustain research-driven development after my departure.

Experience Designer at The Woodward Company (2020-12 – 2021-05)

• Redesigned existing platform using heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, and user research to ground decisions in real user needs.
• Developed an intranet portal system for proprietary financial analysis and due diligence workflows, improving internal efficiency for asset management teams.

Experience Designer/Scrum Master at MeasureCare (2020-11 – 2020-12)

• Enhanced medical personnel communication platform through user interview, usability testing, and competitive analysis; ensured on-time delivery using Agile/Scrum methodology.

Corporate Operations Manager at Tractus Corporation (2015-10 – 2019-12)

Pre UX role in corporate operations, strategic planning, and cross-functional project management – building the systems thinking and stakeholder management foundation that informs my design practice today.

Bachelor of Science in Business Management – Western Governors University

Immersion in User Experience Design Immersion & Front-End Web Development – General Assembly