VP of User Experience and Design Innovation

As VP of User Experience and Design Innovation, you will lead a multi-disciplinary organization spanning UX research, design systems, content and globalization, and AI-driven software delivery, alongside a team of design leaders driving product design across the platform. You have a track record of making the people around you better — you drive quality and efficiency by establishing process, developing talent, and elevating your team to accomplish more than they could without you. You see yourself as a team captain more than a coach.

You are an AI-forward leader. You don't just support AI adoption — you own it. You will define and drive the strategy for bringing AI into every function you lead: accelerating research synthesis, scaling design systems, automating content and localization, and modernizing the software development lifecycle through AI-assisted workflows.

Your Organization includes Product Design, User Experience Research, Globalization & Content and Design Systems.

You report to our Chief Product and Technology Officer, and may work remotely from anywhere in the US where Smartsheet is a registered employer.

You Will:

• Lead, evolve, and articulate a bold, user-centered vision for the future of design and user experience across Smartsheet's product portfolio and external systems.
• Own and scale research, design, design systems, content, localization, and AI-first design strategy across all product lines and geographies.
• Build, mentor, and grow a team of senior functional and design leaders; scale and evolve the org in alignment with company growth.
  Develop career paths and programs tailored to individual team member professional development.
• Set organizational strategy around design maturity, AI adoption, design systems adoption, and cross-functional design-led decision-making across product, engineering, and business teams.
• Build, evolve, and scale UX processes, standards, and tools, owning the AI agenda for the org by identifying and driving high-impact opportunities to embed AI into research, design systems, content/localization, and the software development lifecycle.
• Work closely with executive leadership, product, engineering, and go-to-market teams to define strategy and ensure design and AI-forward thinking are embedded in critical business decisions.
• Establish and own key metrics tying design and AI initiatives to user satisfaction, adoption, retention, revenue outcomes, and delivery velocity; regularly review and communicate progress.
• Translate business goals into innovative, creative, and engaging product experiences.
• Own content strategy and localization approaches across all product lines.

You Have:

• 15+ years of experience in a highly cross-functional role running strategic projects from idea through implementation.
• 15+ years leading and building UX, design, research, or content organizations, including experience as a manager of managers with P&L responsibility.
• A track record of building and scaling high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams (research, design, design systems, content, localization, engineering-adjacent functions).
• Demonstrated experience driving AI adoption within a design, research, content, or software delivery organization not just using AI tools individually, but setting org-wide AI strategy.
• Deep expertise in research methodologies, design strategy, content strategy, and localization best practices for global B2B SaaS platforms.
• Experience leading enterprise SaaS products with complex user workflows, multi-stakeholder environments, and mission-critical use cases.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted software development practices and how they change the design-to-engineering handoff.
• Experience finding simple, innovative solutions for complex problems, and facilitating research to uncover user needs.
• Strong visual design sense; expert-level fluency in Figma or comparable design/prototyping tools.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; ability to influence across Product, Engineering, and executive leadership.
• Ability to articulate design decisions and advocate for the user, while balancing speed and innovation enabled by AI.