# Rachel Robinette > Head of Design, Design + Research + Innovation Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/rachelrobinette Rachel Robinette is a design leader and innovation strategist with over 20 years experience translating insights into growth opportunities and new products and experiences in a diverse range of industries. At KiwiCo, Rachel has built out and led the Product Design team, bringing strategic focus to the product roadmap, developing and rolling out a visual design language to unify the portfolio, creating product design principles, and developing multiple award-winning product lines that bring meaningful, fun and enriching experiences to kids. Heading up the design research and strategy practice at Casper, her team focused on uncovering insights about what good sleep means to people, and translating those insights into products that help us all sleep better. This work demands a broad toolkit of research methods-- discovery to validation, qualitative and quantitative--as well as an ability to make people comfortable being interviewed from their own bed. In her time at Casper she has led the research that defined a number of award-winning new products including the Wave and the Glow. In her previous role at The Clorox Company, Rachel was the front-end design lead helping discover, frame, and explore new business and category opportunities. From “where-to-play” mapping to iterative prototyping and testing break-through solutions, Rachel has helped teams turn scrappy consumer research into new product platforms: creating tangible prototypes that consumers don’t want to give back, and building initial ideas into $25M-50M concepts and platforms. While at Jump Associates, an innovation consultancy, Rachel led project teams and managed the growth of the company from 6 to over 40 employees. Her design work has taken her on ethnographic research trips as diverse as shadowing cowboys in Wyoming, attending Harley Davidson rallies in Tennessee, and spending countless hours in the homes, kitchens, and cars of families across the US. As a design educator Rachel has taught design methods and tools, with a focus on design research, empathy, context, framing, and storytelling. She has had experience teaching industrial designers and engineers, as well as training and developing workshops for professionals. She holds a B.S. in Product Design and an M.A. in Education from Stanford University, where she has taught and lectured. ## Work Experience ### Head of Product Design @ KiwiCo, Inc. Jan 2023 – Present ### Director of Product Insights @ KiwiCo, Inc. Jan 2022 – Present | United States ### Director of Consumer Insights + Product Research @ Casper Jan 2016 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area Director of Consumer Insights and Product research (present) Lead all consumer insights and UX research to define consumer target, improve our customer journey, define product strategy, and develop compelling product claims, reporting to the CMO. Defined the strategy, tested, and optimized creative for a new product differentiation initiative. Ads with new creative saw +15% CTR and almost double CVR, while new site assets saw +43% CVR. Developed lead claims for the Snow cooling collection and led concept and testing for the Glow Nightlight. Director of Design Research and Strategy (2016-2020): Led the design research team to define new products and product roadmap, reporting to the Chief Product Officer. -Expanded mattress portfolio from "1 perfect mattress," to 3, broadening Casper's customer base and increasing AOV based on insight into people's sleep needs. Translated exploratory research into the design of the award-winning Wave and Essential mattresses. -Developed initial strategy and concept and validated opportunity for Casper's first connected product, the Glow light. Informed design decisions throughout development across product definition, features, UX. Received utility patent for work on Glow, which received the DNA design award and was named one of Time Magazine's Top 100 Inventions of 2019. -Led quant and qual research into mattress feature perception and portfolio structure to expand and relaunch Casper's entire mattress collection in 2020. -Supported the redesign of Casper's retail packaging system to enter new wholesale channels. Dramatically shifted the design direction of the packaging and visual assets across consumer touch points to drive premium perception of brand. -Built the design research function with a lean 2-person team, collaborating closely with design and engineering. Mentored and nurtured junior and senior research talent. Led a community of practice of UX, Experience, and Consumer Insights to collaborate across projects. ### Design Lead, Innovation and New Business Discovery @ The Clorox Company Jan 2010 – Jan 2016 | Oakland, CA --Led the discovery and design of new product platforms as part of multi-disciplinary, front-end innovation teams looking for new growth opportunities in core businesses and adjacencies. Chartered $50M platform for Latin America, $25M platform in new adjacency, and 2 $25M charters for home care. --Translated consumer insights into design by building imperatives for design and product development based on ethnographic research, creating a clear vision to guide teams from initial discovery through commercialization. Facilitated and trained project teams throughout the organization on human-centered design methods. --Led the rapid prototyping and iterative testing of early concepts to explore form, use experience, and benefits, and collaborated with advanced technology to create working prototypes for in-home testing. Used “transactional learning” to sell minimum viable product prototypes to explore positioning, target, and product variables before product launch. --Built out the team: Grew demand for design leadership within the organization, increasing our headcount and managing and mentoring interns and new designers. ### Outreach Coordinator @ SCRAP Jan 2007 – Jan 2011 | San Francisco Grew and developed relationships between this non-profit re-use depot (Scroungers’ Center for Reusable Art Parts) and the business community. Led web site redesign to launch end of April 2010. Diverted over 50 tons of useable material from the landfill annually. ### Adjunct Professor @ California College of the Arts Jan 2006 – Jan 2011 | San Francisco, CA Taught Industrial Design undergraduate and Graduate Design master's students the following courses: • “Design Methods and Research” Industrial Design. Lead students through the basics of design thinking, social research, analysis, and storytelling. Spring 06, Fall 07 to Fall 2010. • “History of Industrial Design.” Industrial Design, and “History of Media” Graduate Design. Co-taught lecture and discussion sections on developments in industrial, interaction, and graphic design and implications for current designers. Fall 08 and Spring 09 • “Design for Elders,” Engage @ cca. Created a research-based design studio that partnered with a low-income senior housing center. Brought in renowned designer Patricia Moore. Spring 2010 and 2011 • “Investigating Systems of Exchange” Upper division interdisciplinary studies. Working with students from design, architecture, fashion and interiors to explore multiple models for how goods get exchanged and how value is constructed. Hands-on studio projects. Spring 2010. ### Design Consultant @ A+O Design Methods Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 Co-lead creative workshops for multiple clients, from retailers to high-tech. Analyzed existing research, created and delivered presentations, crafted workshop activities. ### Senior Associate @ Jump Associates Jan 2002 – Jan 2006 Provided leadership for a rapidly growing design strategy firm, from defining and managing client work to making decisions regarding the company’s overall strategic growth. • Project Lead: Lead multi-disciplinary teams through a design process to complete strategy projects using social research methods and business planning techniques. Developed the work plan, assured and involved the client team, mentored and developed teammates, facilitated collaborative sessions, presented to stakeholders at the VP and CEO level. Clients include HP, Wrangler, Target, Harley-Davidson, General Mills. • Research Lead: Created protocols for ethnographic fieldwork. Developed new methods and practices in analysis to uncover insights about people’s big needs. Led content synthesis to create clarifying frameworks for design and strategy. • Design Lead: Guided ideation and concept development through projects, from initial brainstorms to idea selection and refinement. Designed and facilitated ideation workshops, directed concept illustration, created design metaphors and principles. • Hiring Manager: Built a recruiting system and managed recruiting to help the firm grow from 7 to 30 people from 2003-2005. Developed a network of staffing resources, created a hiring strategy to plan the firms’ growth over 2004 and 2005, evaluated potential hires. ### Section Leader @ Stanford University Jan 2004 – Jan 2004 | Palo Alto, CA Taught senior undergraduate and master students in the fundamentals of qualitative research theory and methods as part of the Product Design core curriculum series “ME216: Needfinding.” ### Design Intern @ LeapFrog Jan 2001 – Jan 2001 Launched the first in-house usability study for this leading interactive toy manufacturer to prioritize design goals for version updates of their “Turbo Twist” product line and other future LeapFrog products. ## Education ### Bachelor of Science (BS) in Product Design, School of Engineering Stanford University ### Master of Arts (M.A.) in Social Sciences in Education, School of Education Stanford University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rachel-robinette --- Source: https://flows.cv/rachelrobinette JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/rachelrobinette/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-05