# Therese Bartolini 🇺🇦 > Human-first design leader. Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/therese I have 20+ years of experience working in User Experience Design (XD) and shipping human-centered products. As a human-centered design leader, I drive change through innovative and creative solutions prioritizing user needs. Through user obsession and a strong sense of accountability, I imagine, design, ship, and scale products. Most recently, as the Global Head of Experience Design at Wayfair, I led Wayfair’s Global Experience Design Community (GXDC) comprising 190 XD practitioners to foster a design culture of innovation, creativity, user obsession, and accountability across all of Wayfair’s Technology organization. I care deeply about using behavioral and cognitive skills to solve human problems in ambiguous environments, always centering the people I design for and with. Before Wayfair, I was at Publicis Sapient, leading the Boston Product Innovation and Systems Thinking practices. Outside work, I’m a perpetually unprepared traveler (25+ countries and counting), novice painter, and ferocious eater/cook. I love meeting new people over a virtual cup of coffee. Feel free to reach out here on LinkedIn or contact me directly at tobartolini[at]gmail[dot]com for a meet & greet. Competencies: Experience Design Leadership, User-Centric Design Strategy, Data Analysis & Insights, People Leadership, Capacity & Budget Mgmt, Design Systems & Operations, Senior Stakeholder Mgmt, Rapidly Scaling Teams, and Cross-Functional Collaboration. ## Work Experience ### VP, User Experience @ Vista Jan 2023 – Present | Providence, RI As the leader of Vista's User Experience function, I oversee a team of 75 UX professionals in Product Design, Content Strategy, and User Research within the Product Experiences (PX) organization. Together, PX and Vista Engineering form Vista's 900-person Product Development team, which is dedicated to empowering millions of small businesses worldwide through intuitive design and seamless experiences. In my role, I set Vista's strategic UX vision and drive scalable solutions that enhance customer satisfaction, brand trust, and business performance. I ensure the UX organization delivers cohesive, high-quality experiences while fostering operational efficiency, design consistency, and a culture of continuous improvement. Key Initiatives and Achievements 🚀 #elev8 Launched a multi-quarter, cross-functional initiative to elevate the intuitiveness of VistaPrint.com by enhancing visual language, improving UX consistency, and streamlining design and development practices. Delivered measurable improvements, including a 24% MoM increase in customer engagement and a forecasted $2.5M incremental run rate increase in VGP. 🎯 Experience Standards Defined principles that guide the team’s work: Crafted with Care, Designed to Delight, Handed Off with Love, and Respecting the Makers. These standards ensure our designs are intuitive, accessible, and scalable while fostering a culture of craftsmanship and collaboration. 🛠 Experience Debt Framework Established a comprehensive framework to identify, prioritize, and resolve UX debt, ensuring design consistency, reducing cognitive load, and maintaining brand trust. Embedded UX debt reduction into product teams’ processes, focusing on mobile optimization and responsive design. By blending strategic vision with operational excellence, I help Vista deliver experiences that meet today’s customer needs and inspire confidence for the future. ### Head of Global Experience Design @ Wayfair Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 | Boston, Massachusetts, United States Led Wayfair’s UX community, a team of 190 XD practitioners, championing a culture of innovation, creativity, user-centricity, and accountability within Wayfair’s Technology organization. Managed a diverse team of 12 direct reports across Customer and Supplier groups, encompassing product design, content strategy, and user research, as well as operational teams in design ops, research ops, and content ops to streamline processes and elevate design impact. ### Product Design Director @ Wayfair Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 ✦ Led the 60+ person Supplier XD team, spearheading innovation and design for enterprise applications used by Wayfair’s 23,000+ Global Suppliers. Collaborated with cross-functional peers, including engineering, marketing, analytics, and product management, to fully integrate and deliver content, design, and research. ✦ Led Systems & Operations team used by 4000+ employees across Wayfair's Technology organization. Grew service scope from 15% of Wayfair’s Technology org to 100% of the Technology org; scope included design systems, content systems, and design and research operations. ### Group Creative Director, User Experience @ Publicis Sapient Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Boston, Massachusetts Led digital product innovation and systems thinking practice; managed team of 20 innovation, systems, and eCommerce designers serving clients such as BJs, JJill, Prudential, and PTC. ✦ Partnered with clients to define the product vision informed by data analysis and deep end-user empathy. Facilitated a strong product vision across client teams and stakeholders. ✦ Collaborated with POs and Engineers to define experience requirements, evaluate lift in experience, evaluate feature sets against cost and returns, align on the MVP, and define the product roadmap. ✦ Directed cross-functional teams through the product development life-cycle. Led archetype definition, journey mapping, content strategy, taxonomy & IA, wireframing & prototyping, visual design, and system definition. ### Director User Experience @ Genuine Jan 2013 – Jan 2016 | Boston, Massachusetts Hired and developed team of 8 UX designers focused on web and application design for B2B and B2C clients, such as Harvard, Red Hat, Kripalu, and Mass General Brigham. ✦ Established new product design service format, including requirements gathering, experience strategy, personas, taxonomies and IA, contextual inquiries and user testing, analytics assessment, funnel definition, content models, wireframes, prototypes, and specifications. ✦ Launched usability testing lab, grew the lab to deliver revenue within the first year. ✦ Guided the full product design cycle, delivered +90% of projects within budget and on time. ### Lead User Experience Designer @ WE Communications Jan 2010 – Jan 2013 | Portland, Oregon Led team of 10 UX designers and front-end developers focused on marketing and web experiences for B2B and B2C clients, including Microsoft, Make-A-Wish, BMGF, and Honeywell. ### Senior User Experience Designer @ New York City Economic Development Corporation Jan 2007 – Jan 2010 | New York, New York Marketing design for urban planning initiatives, application design for vendor tools. Supervised 2 direct reports. ### User Experience Designer @ Lime, Life Balance Media Jan 2006 – Jan 2007 | New York City Web site and eCommerce design for lifestyle start-up. ### Editor @ The Producers Project Jan 2005 – Jan 2005 | New York City, NY ### Multimedia Designer @ Monash Digital Jan 2002 – Jan 2003 | Melbourne, Australia ## Education ### MPS in Interactive Telecommunication (ITP) New York University ### BMM in Information Technology Monash University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/thereseobartolini --- Source: https://flows.cv/therese JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/therese/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13