# Pilar Strutin-Belinoff > Design & Product Leader / Curious about Education & Future of Work Location: Oakland, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/pilar Curiosity in Education & Future of Work Design and product leader with a track record of scaling high-impact teams and consumer experiences. A player-coach who builds strong design culture, translates vision into emotionally resonant systems, and aligns design with business, technical, and user outcomes. I’ve built and scaled collaborative, high-performing design teams grounded in curiosity, optimism, and a shared drive to deliver excellent work. Recently, I’ve led teams to deliver consumer-focused growth strategies, hands-on learning experiences and partnered cross-functionally to uncover and act on opportunities, and embed scalable design practices across organizations. ## Work Experience ### Product Design Leader - Higher Education @ Pearson Jan 2025 – Present ### Senior Design Director- Growth, Monetization for Learning Exp @ Udemy Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Design Director- Hands-on Learning Experiences @ Udemy Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Design and User Experience Leader @ DesignCraft Jan 2006 – Jan 2024 | Independant consultant I bring deep product design experience and expertise to a variety of projects. I have worked broadly in the field of UX from research, strategist, to interaction design ... Recently I was the strategic partner and led the user research and product design effort to understand key needs of parents and how to provide learning experiences and social emotional support to their kids (esp. during a pandemic!). Managed the design, development and launch of the MVP. Supported a midsize work flow management organization develop their Design Operations role. Worked with the design team to progress a foundational user-centered design practice to a rich user-led design culture across the organization and helped to align cross-functional teams on a user-centered process from “asking the right question” in user research to beta testing solutions. Teams I have worked with : great schools, frog Design, U.S. Digital Response, AltSchool, webOS, Palm, Asana (Design OPS), Prepared Parents, Design Map, Pearson Education, Smart Design, Flip, Lunar, Adaptive Path, Method, Sequence ### Director of UXR @ Summit Public Schools (Public Charter Network) Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area Developed and led a design thinking practice, team and culture in a midsize charter management organization. - Designed a human-centered design practice and culture to span across functional teams - Built a user experience research team to shape the future of learning and teaching. Our research yielded small changes across a classroom or within a school site, while other change ideas address systemic challenges in our network and beyond. - Mentored young researchers and other disciplines around the design development practice - Partnered to roll out an Agile style development practice to increase efficiency of bringing products to teachers - Partnered to develop a Network Improvement Community eco-system and process to help teachers evolve current approaches and learn best practices ### Experience Design Director @ McKinsey & Company Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area Built and led world-class design team in a well-established business setting. - Shaped and defined the design thinking and development processes across the multinational organization - Supported scaling the west coast design team - Partnered in transforming Fortune 500 organization customer centered products into relevant and exciting product experiences - Facilitated executive stakeholder business and design strategy sessions ### Product Manager @ Public Library of Science (PLOS) Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 Led a development team to design and develop new experiences to deepen user engagement and foster scientific and research communities at PLOS. - Developed foundational technologies which defined the roadmap of community-centric products and experiences - Used insights to help define and then develop data-models - Designed data integration strategies to help deliver on our strategic goals ### Product Manager @ GreatSchools Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 Led the effort to understand, design and build the local community product which responded directly to the needs of parents when choosing the best possible schools for their kids. My role included overall product management, leading (and sometimes doing!) the community and user research, content analysis, visual design and interaction design. ### User Experience Research, Design, Strategy @ frog Jan 2004 – Jan 2006 | San Francisco Bay Area Lead design teams in product research, strategy, information architecture development, and interaction design to create a variety of products. ### Art Director @ Apple Computer Jan 2001 – Jan 2002 Liaisoned with the Apple Design Team, User Support and Instructional Designer team. Developed innovative and successful on boarding experience for easy adoption for new iPod and OSX users. ### Senior Experience Designer @ Viant Jan 2000 – Jan 2001 Digital Brand Strategy, Product Strategy, Customer Experience Definition, Interaction Design, Emergent Technology Adoption Strategies (Web 1.0) ### Senior Designer @ Selbert Perkins Design Jan 1997 – Jan 2000 Brand Strategy and Communications ### Designer, Instructional Designer @ Houghton Mifflin Jan 1995 – Jan 1997 ## Education ### BFA in design Arizona State University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/pilarariella --- Source: https://flows.cv/pilar JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/pilar/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13