# Brett Polonsky

Brett Polonsky is a remote worker on Himalayas, Fractional Head of Product Design at Self-Employed, based in United States.

Source: https://himalayas.app/@brettpolonsky

```text
Head of Product Design | I see the things most people miss | I raise the bar and the expectations | I Create Clarity from Chaos | I Design for Humans
```

| Detail | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Availability | Looking for a job |
| Location | United States |
| Authorized to work in | United States |
| Salary expectations | 200k+ USD |
| Job categories | Head of Design, Design Director, UX Director |
| Skills | Product Design Strategy, Design Organization Scaling, DesignOps, Enterprise UX, SaaS Products, AI Driven UX, End to End Product Experiences, Design Systems, Data informed design, Growth and Conversion, Digital Transformation, Product Market Fit, Agile Design, Lean Product Design, Research |
| Website | https://wbrettpolonsky.com |
| Portfolio | https://wbrettpolonsky.com |
| LinkedIn | https://linkedin.com/in/brettpolonsky |

## What I'm looking for

```text
Strategic design executive leading product design, and digital transformation from highly-regulated industries to enterprise consumer platforms.
```

## About

```text
Head of Product Design

Growth exposes design. Most companies don't stall because of bad designers, they stall because nobody built the foundation: the org structure, the standards, and the decision clarity that let design actually drive outcomes.

That's the problem I solve.

I've spent my career building and rebuilding design organizations inside Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, from major names in retail, tech, financial services, and healthcare, to emerging AI platforms. Some needed a design function built from scratch. Others needed one rebuilt. A few needed someone to walk in, name what was broken, and fix it fast.

What that looks like in practice:

— Founding and scaling design orgs from 0
— Building design systems teams actually use and ship from
— Aligning Product, Design, and Engineering around outcomes
— Embedding AI into product experiences at the platform level
— Developing design leaders who don't need managing

Outside of leading design orgs, I'm an artist, author, and speaker. My most recent book, IsMs, is a collection of sharp reflections on work, life, and the chaos in between.
```

## Experience

### Fractional Head of Product Design (current)

Self-Employed. Jan 2025 - Present

```text
Providing executive-level product design leadership to companies navigating complexity, scaling design teams, and aligning product, engineering, and business strategy toward shipped outcomes. Active engagements include UX consulting with an early-stage AI media platform.
```

Skills: Product-Design-Strategy, Design-Organization-Scaling, DesignOps, UX-Consulting, AI-Driven-UX, Cross-Functional-Collaboration

### Head of Digital Studio

[Trianz](https://himalayas.app/companies/trianz). Jan 2022 - Jan 2025

```text
Led globally distributed product design teams of 6 direct reports across concurrent enterprise platform engagements for clients including Cigna and New York Life. Partnered with executive and sales leadership on pre-sales strategy, contributing directly to new client acquisition and account expansion.
```

Skills: Design-Leadership, DesignOps, Employer-Hiring-Frameworks, Onboarding, Organizational-structure, Delivery-Flows, Enterprise-UX, Pre-Sales-Strategy

### Experience Director

Springbox (A Prophet Company). Jan 2021 - Jan 2022

```text
Directed product design strategy for enterprise clients across healthcare, fintech, and SaaS. Led creation and rollout of scalable design systems that reduced design debt and accelerated time-to-market.
```

Skills: Product-Design-Strategy, Design-Systems, Enterprise-UX, Cross-Functional-Collaboration, Mentorship

### Head of UX & Product Design

[A Place for Mom](https://himalayas.app/companies/a-place-for-mom). Jan 2018 - Jan 2020

```text
Built the company's first centralized product design organization from zero, growing to 5 direct reports plus contractors across web and mobile platforms. Drove measurable conversion lifts through A/B-tested UX improvements to decision funnels and pricing transparency flows.
```

Skills: Design-Leadership, Design-Systems, A-B-Testing, Conversion-Rate-Optimization, UX-Strategy, Team-Building

### Head of Product Design

CBRE Build. Jan 2017 - Jan 2018

```text
Founded and scaled an in-house product design function from the ground up supporting global real estate SaaS platforms across international markets. Led design for enterprise productivity tools that measurably improved agent efficiency and client conversion tracking.
```

Skills: Design-Leadership, Enterprise-UX, SaaS, Accessibility, Research, Design-Standards

### Creative Director / Senior UX Consultant

AIM Consulting. Jan 2015 - Jan 2017

```text
Led embedded product design initiatives for enterprise technology and healthcare clients, delivering measurable improvements in usability and task success rates. Built internal mentoring and recruiting pipelines that scaled senior product design talent acquisition.
```

Skills: UX-Consulting, Product-Design, Mentorship, Recruitment, Digital-Transformation

## Education

### The Art Institutes

Bachelor of Science, Graphic Design

```text
Bachelor of Science in Graphic Design from The Art Institutes.
```

## Tech stack

- Figma
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe XD
- Adobe InDesign
- Jira
- Microsoft Office 365
- Confluence
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Experience Manager

To contact Brett, message them from this profile with a Himalayas employer account: [Hire on Himalayas](https://himalayas.app/hire).

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