# Mary K.

> User Experience Research & Design Lead

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/maryk

I'm a dedicated, creative designer/researcher with 10+ years of success in user-focused product design. I direct complex projects through all phases of design & development while balancing business goals, technical feasibility, form and functionality, and user needs, informed by research and feedback. As a skilled communicator who mentors and inspires teams, I evangelize research and design to cross-functional colleagues and executives while clearly advocating for customer users in final products.

## Work Experience
### Senior UX Researcher/Designer @ Flexion Inc.
Jan 2023 – Present

### Freelance Design Consultant @ Tomato Design
Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco, California, United States
Provide UX research, interaction and visual design services to small to medium businesses. Projects included redesign of a cryptocurrency online “trading room” and options trading platform, including design systems for both products.

### Director, User Experience @ First Republic Bank
Jan 2016 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area
Directed user experience team; leading design, qualitative and quantitative user research, and content strategy for personal and business digital banking applications. Collaborated with executive, product and technical teams to define product strategy and roadmaps. Recruited and retained internal design team. Directed design and research vendor relationships. 

Led product design for bank’s first self-service account opening feature, which generated $11M in new bank accounts in the first 2 weeks after pilot launch.

### Principal User Experience Designer @ First Republic Bank
Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area
Led cross-functional team of seven in complete redesign of personal digital banking from conceptual blue-sky whiteboard sketches through iterative research and design to successful customer rollout.
 
Implemented agile iterative design/prototype/research processes powered by Slack, Trello, Github, and Sketch, reducing vendor and organizational siloes and introducing modern design and development practices to the bank.

Directed research studies and user interviews instrumental in creation of product design principles, informing features like integrated personal banking team contact information and contextual money movement.

### Senior User Experience Designer @ First Republic Bank
Jan 2012 – Jan 2015
As the bank’s first UX hire, introduced user research practice and design strategy. Recruited user experience design team.

Facilitated redesign and relaunch of public-facing website in concert with marketing. Designed simple contact forms inviting bank customers and prospects to request information, increasing sales leads while meeting compliance and regulatory requirements. 

Improved digital banking experience for native mobile and web applications, with a special focus on money movement (transfers, wires, and payments).

### Product Designer @ LexisNexis
Jan 2011 – Jan 2012
Designed features for “business of law” accounting and legal matter management products, working collaboratively in small cross-functional teams.

### Designer @ User Experience Design Consultant
Jan 2001 – Jan 2012
Provided user experience, branding, web, and visual design to B2B and B2C corporate clients. Managed a small team of software developers.


## Education
### English
Stetson University

### Art New Media
American River College


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marykuris

---
Source: https://flows.cv/maryk
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/maryk/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-13