# Arin Bhowmick > Chief Design Officer at SAP | Ex-IBM & Oracle | Building AI and human-centered systems that scale globally | Keynote Speaker | Board Advisor | People make design great! 💡🎤 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/arinbhowmick Wondering how design can keep up with AI, scale globally, and still stay human? That’s where I come in. As Chief Design Officer at SAP, I lead the design of user experiences that touch millions of people every day. Follow me for insights on AI-first design, human-centered systems, and creative problem-solving tips to improve both people’s lives and enterprise. With over 20 years of experience leading global design organizations, I’ve seen firsthand how design can transform not only products and entire companies but day to day life. I’m on a mission to elevate the influence of design on human life by advancing designers as leaders who shape better ways of living and working. I envision a future where design systems and emerging technologies lighten the workload, freeing designers to focus on creativity, leadership, and building experiences that truly improve how we live and work. At SAP, I lead a global community of 1000+ designers across the portfolio. Previously at IBM, I directed 900+ product design teams delivering universal products and winning 60+ international design and innovation awards. As a design leader, I’ve been fortunate to: • Lead innovation labs and incubation projects • Guide evolutions from point solutions to platforms and ecosystems • Re-imagine large-scale product experiences and integrate acquired brands • Hire, nurture, and empower leadership teams while building organizational foundations (practices, systems, processes, enablement, and tools) • Apply emerging technologies (AI, Cloud, Business Apps) in purposeful and meaningful ways • Define UX vision and strategy with applied user research and scaled design systems • Drive company-wide cross-functional collaboration so design teams become innovators shaping product direction and differentiation • Champion design thinking with adoption across business, process, and culture using inclusive and ethical practices • Raise organizational maturity by building trusted partnerships across the business and transforming design into an OKR-driven discipline that positively impacts business metrics Beyond leadership, I love the craft of design itself. I take pride in 15+ design patents, several research publications, and articles published in outlets like Medium and Forbes. I also host Our Design Diaries Podcast, where I share conversations that bring design, technology, and people together. My philosophy is simple: “People make design great!” Looking for a keynote speaker? Let’s connect! I regularly speak on global stages about the future of design, AI, UX, and design leadership. ## Work Experience ### Executive Vice President and Chief Design Officer @ SAP Jan 2022 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area + Drive design excellence, design strategy and execution, design driven business outcomes across the entire SAP product portfolio + Design practices: Design System, Accessibility and Inclusive Experiences, Product Research and User Insights, AI Experiences, Customer and Partner Co-creation + Designing for AI, generative AI design principles and patterns, embedding meaningful AI in product portfolios + Safeguard responsible AI as an executive member of the SAP AI Ethics Steering Committee + Drive innovation priorities for SAP as an executive member of the SAP Innovation Committee + Evangelize and champion an experience driven and user centered mindset across the company ### Chair, HFES, User Experience Technical Group (UXTG) @ HFES - Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Jan 2025 – Present ### Board Vice Chair, Industrial Engineering Dept, College of Engg, Computing and Applied Sciences @ Clemson University Jan 2024 – Present ### Board Advisor and Founding Member @ Design Executive Council Jan 2023 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area ### Board Advisor @ MentalHealthTeens.org Jan 2023 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Voluntary Board Advisor for a non profit organization empowering immigrant teens to thrive mentally and emotionally. ### Chief Design Officer, IBM Products @ IBM Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area + Design for software Products @IBM, helping billions of end users with productive hybrid cloud experiences in IT and Business Automation, Data and Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, Application and Data Integration, and Business Applications + Design for Innovation labs and incubation growth ventures + Adoption and infusion of meaningful and trustworthy AI across IBM products, making lives of our users simpler + IBM technology and product strategy leadership through design ### Vice President and Chief Design Officer, IBM Hybrid Cloud, Automation, Data and Watson AI Platforms @ IBM Jan 2015 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area + Design Executive responsible for the user experience and product design of IBM Hybrid Cloud portfolio including IBM Data and AI, IBM Cloud Platform, IBM Watson AI, IBM Analytics, IBM Cloud Integration, IBM Blockchain, IBM Automation, IBM Security, Red Hat Marketplace + Leading the end to end IBM Cloud (PaaS, SaaS, IaaS, Private, Public, Dedicated, Hybrid) offerings, as well as market innovations via design in data and AI, with leading brands such as IBM Watson, Db2, Cognos, SPSS etc + Leading the Hybrid Cloud, on-premise to cloud native experience transformation, AI driven experiences and offerings, through a cross-functional design org of UX professionals across the globe. + Design Studios and practice, Design Systems, Design Patterns and Standards for Cloud, Data and AI + Evangelizing and promoting IBM Design Thinking across stakeholders, customers and partners to achieve cultural transformations towards innovative design driven agile organizations. ### Advisory Board Member @ Freshdesign Jan 2015 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Vice President, User Experience & Product Design @ Progress Software Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 + Responsible for building and leading the first dedicated Experience Design (XD) organization at Progress Software, and driving the User Experience, Product Design, UX strategy and execution for all revenue-generating products worldwide, including the flagship Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) product line. + Built up a cross-functional XD org and practice consisting of User Researchers, Usability Engineers, UX Designers, and Technical UXD's with a startup mindset, integrated into an agile development process with product releases every 4 months. + Served as the Chief Evangelist for design thinking across the company, partners and customers, and effectively position and showcase user experience as a key value proposition of Progress products, across environments (CLOUD and on premise), desktop and mobile devices. + Drove the vision of key Cloud Platform offerings: Application Development (Web and Mobile Tooling) and Data Integration ### Senior Director, Cloud Applications User Experience @ Oracle Jan 2011 – Jan 2013 + Led innovation, user experience (UX) research and design for Oracle Sales Cloud, Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Cloud and On Premise family of software products as well as Higher Education related Campus Solutions product. + Led UX vision & execution of a multi channel Oracle Service Cloud experience, prior to the acquisition of RightNow. + Responsible for direction and oversight of all user research, creative and interaction design efforts coming out of the CRM UX team. This team of Researchers, Information Architects, Interaction Designers, UI Prototypers and Visual Designers to deliver world-class experiences. + Formulate and execute a shared experience vision for Fusion CRM across multiple product lines (Sales, Marketing, Customer and Contact Management, Incentive Compensation, Enterprise Contracts, Social CRM, Customer Data Management, Customer Service and Support) and platforms including web and traditional desktop. + Evangelize the value of UX among the senior leadership team, working as a chief user advocate throughout product planning and delivery. + Evolve organization’s approach to UX Design based on industry best practices, including Waterfall and Agile development methodologies + Enhance Agile design methods and practices used by UX team as well as other scrum team members + Develop, evolve and promote methods of expressing solutions and concepts beyond the traditional artifacts (wireframing, storyboards) + Develop and promote alternate research and data collection methods of gaining user insights + Develop, maintain and ensure adherence to product specific and application wide UX standards, guidelines and design patterns to ensure quality and consistency of the user experience + Drive extensive ongoing primary and secondary user research in support of both tactical and strategic UX goals and initiatives + Keep apprised of and assess competitive products to better define best practices and promote leading edge solutions ### Senior Manager, Fusion CRM, Applications User Experience @ Oracle Jan 2006 – Jan 2011 + Responsible for user experience of Oracle’s next generation CRM applications (“Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management”), including Cloud and On Premise solutions. + Managed a multifaceted team of architects, interaction designers, user researchers, visual designers, contractors and interns to successfully deliver best in class multi-platform design solutions for a wide range of CRM applications (Role based Dashboards, Sales Forecasting, Lead Management, Opportunity Management, Customer and Account Management, References and Competitor Management, CRM Desktop, Enterprise Contracts, Incentive Compensation, Sales Prospecting and Opportunity Landscape, Sales Campaigns, Sales Catalog, Sales Predictor, Territory Management, Quota Management, Marketing and Campaign Management, Partner Management etc). + Promoted UX awareness and support within the CRM product strategy, product management, and development teams by driving the user-centered research and design process integration into the CRM release and development plans (both waterfall and agile), resulting in useful, usable and innovative solutions for customers and end users + Led cross-product UX integration, consistency and quality through successful definition, rollout and adoption of user experience and consistency reviews, bug logging and audit processes. + Employed direct and consulting support models to meet the user experience needs of ~ 1000 engineers, product managers and strategists in the CRM development organization. + In support of the go-to-market initiatives, created collateral and contributed to white papers highlighting next generation user experience concepts, process and innovations as key differentiators in the CRM marketplace + Identified, delivered and promoted common and CRM specific UX design patterns, guidelines and standards for overall product usability, consistency and quality. ### Senior Manager, Fusion Enabling Technologies, Applications User Experience @ Oracle Jan 2005 – Jan 2011 + Responsible for user experience of enterprise application implementation, initial setup & ongoing maintenance, application administration and lifecycle management set of products tied to Oracle Fusion Applications + Formulated, evangelized and executed a vision to have a unified and consistent setup and maintenance experience for the entire suite of Fusion Applications in an effort to rapidly enhance customer, partner and end user adoption of Fusion Applications. + Worked with executives from product development and product strategy to align user experience, strategic and development goals to achieve the vision in a very short time + Built and managed a team of architects, interaction designers and user researchers through a full UCD process to design and deliver high quality, data driven design solution for the Oracle Fusion Functional Setup Manager. + Delivered a set of specific UX patterns and guidelines for Setup and Maintenance that served as the main reference for product design across a multitude of application products ### Design & User Research Lead, Middleware User Experience @ Oracle Jan 2004 – Jan 2005 + User Experience Design and Research lead for 20+ products, including technical user based installation, upgrade, migration, system monitoring & administration products, as well as key end user self service and collaboration applications + Developed comprehensive user experience plans, to prioritize and optimize UX efforts in the short term, while driving to long term goal of increasing focus and coverage on key elements to enhance the overall user experience. + Responsible for reviewing the quality of usability and design deliverables, assignment of usability projects, resource and schedule planning to help UX Managers coordinate usability support & define usability strategy. + Developed a formal mentorship program and provided oversight for four usability engineers to meet release deadlines and ensure delivery of implementable UX designs, consistent with Oracle Application and Desktop standards and guidelines. + Evangelized UCD process to the Install, Upgrade, Migration product teams across Oracle Database (DB), Oracle Application Server (AS) and Oracle Collaboration Suite (OCS) domains. Influenced executives to get their buy in with the process, establish task completion and usability goals and introduce usability metrics within the product release criterion + As designer, delivered user profiles, prioritized business and user requirements, task flow diagrams, object models, IA diagrams, wireframes, page mock ups, interactive prototypes, UI technical specifications and guidelines. + As a user researcher, conducted and delivered actionable reports including usability issues, subjective and formative usability metrics from design reviews and consultations, contextual and observational studies, productivity analysis, phone interviews, task analysis, card sorts, usability evaluations, benchmark testing. ### Senior User Researcher, Server Technology User Experience @ Oracle Jan 2000 – Jan 2004 + Usability Engineering Lead for Database (DB), Application Server (AS) & Oracle Collaboration Suite (OCS) Manageability and OCS End User UI’s. + Conducted user research by applying different methodologies based on the objective and fit within the product lifecycle including: Heuristic Reviews, Contextual Enquiry, Task Analyses, Focus Groups, Wants and Needs Analysis, Usability Walkthroughs, Surveys and structured CIF Usability tests and competitive usability evaluations. + Designed, conducted, analyzed, and reported results from usability studies covering Oracle Files Online, Oracle Applications Manager, Oracle Portal Provider Builder, Oracle Ultra Search, Oracle Internet Directory, Delegated Administration Services, Oracle9iAS Integration Platform, Oracle Appliance 1.4.1, Oracle9iAS 9.0.2, Oracle DB Installation and Upgrade, OCS Installation and Upgrade, Oracle9iAS Portal Monitoring and Administration framework, OCS Mail & Calendar Migration Wizard, Oracle9iAS Suite Level Administration Console, OCS 10g Administration Console, and Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control + Led a cross-functional UI team to research, and author standard reporting and execution templates for two types of usability activities (group task analysis and card sort). + Formulated and applied a new competitive analysis usability method called Gap Analysis based on user operations required to complete a task. This method was heavily used to identify user productivity gaps against competitor products without involving end users. ## Education ### Masters in HCI Clemson University ### Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management MSRIT ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/arinb - Website: https://www.sap.com/design --- Source: https://flows.cv/arinbhowmick JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/arinbhowmick/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-05