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Jacob Ward

@jacobward

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Senior product design leader building AI-native teams that ship measurable outcomes.

United States

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What I'm looking for

I seek senior leadership roles where I can build AI-native product/design organizations, align product to measurable outcomes, scale teams and vendors, and lead 0→1 to GTM in a collaborative, outcome-focused culture.

I am a senior product and design leader who builds AI-native product organizations that prioritize time-to-value, activation, decision latency, and cost-to-serve. I unify portfolios, scale teams and vendors, and embed human-AI workflows with design systems and Research Ops to make speed safe while driving quarterly outcome OKRs.

I lead 0→1 incubation through opportunity mapping, business cases, MVP/pilot, GTM handoff, and scale—delivering measurable impact such as improved activation, faster release cadence, reduced UI defects, and forecasting copilots that shorten decision time. I hire and coach manager-of-managers, establish governance and accessibility by default, and align product, research, and engineering to business outcomes.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Head of Product & Design

Current

Parallax

Dec 2018 - Present (6 years 10 months)

Led product and design for a high-growth SaaS planning platform, scaling the org from 1 to 25 and introducing AI assistants that reduced decision time to under 24 hours while improving forecast quality and utilization ~5%. Standardized a shared product toolkit that cut UI defects ~70% and accelerated release cadence from monthly to weekly.

Product Strategy Design Systems PLG Telemetry

Principal Product Designer

Verizon (via The Nerdery)

Sep 2017 - Nov 2018 (1 year 2 months)

Led UX for an enterprise cybersecurity posture platform, establishing Design Ops and governance that accelerated time-to-market ~4x and supported 150% YoY revenue growth with a +10 NPS lift. Drove persona-driven GTM alignment and platform pattern design.

Governance Posture Scoring Telemetry GTM NPS

Staff Product Designer

Sep 2016 - Aug 2017 (11 months)

Led 0→1 portfolio strategy in healthcare, identifying and validating approximately $100M opportunity and translating regulated research into prioritized product bets that expanded market coverage.

Product Strategy Business Case Development Mentoring

Senior Product Design Manager

The Nerdery

Jan 2014 - Aug 2016 (2 years 7 months)

Built and led a 14+ designer team across offices, instituted user-centered design in agile delivery, and led human-factors UX for Medtronic’s first FDA-regulated pacemaker app with defined safety/usability processes.

Team Leadership Human Factors FDA Regulated UX Agile

Lead Service Designer

Azul 7

Jan 2013 - Dec 2013 (11 months)

Used analytics and research to optimize end-to-end UX, improving sentiment and retention for clients and redesigning RMA/returns workflows to reduce cost-to-serve by removing handoffs and touchpoints.

Service Design Retention Prototyping

Senior UX Designer

Sierra Bravo

Apr 2010 - Dec 2012 (2 years 8 months)

Facilitated innovation workshops, converted concepts into prototypes and specs, and led usability testing to de-risk designs prior to engineering implementation.

Usability Testing Prototyping Workshop Facilitation Concept Validation UX Research