Director of Product Design & User Experience UX Leadership • Growing Teams • AI-Enabled • Digital Transformation • Delivering Business Outcomes — Open to new roles

Design that moves
the business forward.

Hayes Cohen is a Product Design Executive with 30 years leading digital transformation, customer experience, and multidisciplinary design organizations for Fortune 500 companies including IBM, Morgan Stanley, Honeywell, and Accenture. He partners with executive leadership to build products customers love while aligning design, engineering, and business strategy.

30 years leading design organizations at IBM, Accenture, Honeywell, and Morgan Stanley — with full ownership of strategy, hiring, and delivery.

See selected work View full career
Superhero UX designer flying through agile, scrum, usability, iterate, adapt, feedback and MVP concepts Concept Illustration
Illustrated team collaborating on UX wireframes — user journey, product details, user profile, mobile, and checkout flows on a whiteboard Concept Illustration
How I work

Design is a team sport.
I build the team.

I turn whiteboards into shipped products — leading research, wireframes, and cross-functional teams from idea to MVP. From a hands-on art director at Bookspan to building a 21-person department across four disciplines.

Visual designers, UX designers, front-end developers, and project managers — all working in agile-style daily standups to increase capacity, velocity, and quality.

Hayes Cohen
21Professionals Led
30Years Experience
6Fortune 500 Clients

Ready to lead your next design transformation.

See selected work Get in touch
Featured Case Study · IBM Interactive
Executive Collaboration & Social Dashboard
1 / 15
Hayes Cohen — Director of User Experience
Hayes Cohen — Director of User Experience
Overview: Collaborate, Social Dash, and E-Commerce platforms
Collaborate — Problem
Collaborate — Problem
Executives needed a modern tool to replace subpar collaboration software
Collaborate — Kick-Off
Collaborate — Kick-Off
Led stakeholder interviews; user quotes, pain points, and gains identified
Collaborate — Process
Collaborate — Process
Wrote user stories and scored story points as part of the scrum team
Collaborate — UX Prep
Collaborate — UX Prep
Led whiteboard sessions to align on user flows and wireframes pre-build
Collaborate — Design
Collaborate — Design
Created visual designs for branding, fonts, icons, palette, and navigation
Collaborate — Global Menu
Collaborate — Global Menu
Designed app navigation that worked across desktop and tablet
Collaborate — Prototype
Collaborate — Prototype
Built a clickable Axure prototype so stakeholders could test interactions
Social Dashboard — Problem
Social Dashboard — Problem
Executives wanted to drive adoption of an internal social platform
Social Dashboard — Whiteboard UX
Social Dashboard — Whiteboard UX
Mapped features and stakeholder needs directly on whiteboards
Social Dashboard — UX Elements
Social Dashboard — UX Elements
Wireframed mobile and alternate visualization styles for engagement data
Social Dashboard — Leaderboard
Social Dashboard — Leaderboard
Designed leaderboard, Top 10 lists, and avatar treatment across devices
Social Dashboard — Profile Strategy
Social Dashboard — Profile Strategy
Extended the visual design system across all internal profile pages
Social Dashboard — Profile Deep Dive
Social Dashboard — Profile Deep Dive
Designed additional pages as new functionality was added
IBM ST App — Executive Dashboard
IBM ST App — Executive Dashboard
Shipped responsive platform used by senior leaders company-wide
Written case study

Executive Social Media Platforms

Director of User Experience — IBM Interactive

Overview

At IBM Interactive, I led end-to-end UX ownership for a suite of executive-facing social media platforms. These tools supported communication and engagement among senior leaders across the organization. Although the product had an approved design, real-world usage revealed usability challenges and inconsistencies across devices.

The Challenge

The inherited experience included a visually dated interface, fragmented interaction patterns across desktop, tablet, and mobile, and limited validation with real users. Despite executive visibility, the product struggled with adoption and usability.

My Role & Responsibilities

As Director of User Experience, I owned UX strategy and execution from discovery through delivery. I led research, information architecture, visual design, prototyping, and testing — partnering closely with product and engineering within Agile and Scrum frameworks.

What I Inherited

A previously approved design that met initial business expectations but failed to support efficient, real-world use across devices.

What I Changed

Through collaborative design workshops, we identified usability pain points and reworked navigation, interaction patterns, and visual hierarchy. I modernized the visual system while embedding UX into two-week sprint delivery and introduced in-application feedback cards to enable continuous iteration.

What Shipped

Three responsive executive-facing platforms delivered incrementally across multiple two-week sprints, used by senior leaders on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

Impact

Improved usability, faster iteration cycles driven by direct user feedback, stronger cross-functional alignment, and a scalable UX foundation for future enhancements.

Key Takeaway

I focus on inheriting complexity, aligning stakeholders, shipping continuously, and building products that evolve with user and business needs.

Leadership approach

Three things I fight for in every room.

01
The user's voice at the table

I keep user research findings present through stakeholder reviews, sprint demos, and launch decisions — so the product that ships matches the need that was found.

02
Agile as a design accelerator

I've built process from scratch at every organization I've joined — reducing rework, shortening review cycles, and giving designers room to do their best work.

03
Teams that outlast the project

At Bookspan I built an interactive creative department from zero to 21. The measure wasn't any single launch — it was the team's ability to deliver consistently, at volume, under pressure.

How I build teams

From individual contributor to a four-department organization.

01
Started as a hands-on art director

I designed and created the processes to manage and grow several niche e-commerce sites, along with the editorial content that supported the products — books, music CDs, and DVD movies.

02
Surrounded myself with talent

As volume grew, I brought in front-end programming, UX/UI design, and project management talent — building toward a family-style dynamic across four departments that scaled with sales.

03
Built a hierarchy as the org outgrew me

I managed every group directly until the volume became too much for one person. I then created four direct reports, each owning staff within their discipline, while I focused on cross-department alignment.

04
Owned the department budget and the team, fully

I held full P&L responsibility for departmental budget across staff and freelancers, and was the final word on hiring, performance reviews, and terminations for the entire organization.

05
Ran agile before it had a name

The team worked in daily standups to discuss progress and obstacles — the goal was always increasing capacity and velocity while protecting quality, long before "agile" was the industry standard.

These four departments supported editorial content, marketing campaigns, and technology functional updates — alongside new site launches — working in lockstep with cross-functional teams across the business at every stage.

Case studies

Projects shaped by research, delivered with rigor.

Prudential wireframes
Insurance · Enterprise UX

Accenture — Prudential Insurance Tools

ChallengeLegacy platform creating error-prone agent workflows and slow onboarding across a major insurance client.
ApproachLed 3 designers in Agile/Scrum — heuristic evaluations, journey mapping, whiteboard sessions, and iterative annotated wireframes and prototypes.
OutcomeDelivered on time and within scope. Zero major post-launch revisions requested by stakeholders.
Morgan Stanley — GBWM Retirement Planning Dashboard
Financial Services · UX

Morgan Stanley — Financial UX Consulting

ChallengeTranslate complex financial product requirements into annotated design deliverables under tight timelines.
ApproachBlack-and-white annotated wireframes and Axure prototypes from BA requirements; introduced agile UX delivery practices to the broader team.
OutcomeDev-ready prototypes delivered on schedule. Agile process improvements adopted broadly by the team.
ADI e-commerce
Distribution · E-Commerce

ADI — E-Commerce Platform

ChallengeDesign a scalable B2B e-commerce platform — product catalog, search, ordering, and account management for a national distributor.
ApproachDeveloped functional requirements from business goals; designed full catalog, filtering, cart, checkout, and invoice management flows.
OutcomePlatform launched with ongoing user testing program driving post-launch improvements.
IBM dashboard
Enterprise · Platform UX

IBM — Executive Collaboration Platform

ChallengeDesign an executive-facing collaboration platform for IBM senior leadership — agenda management, cloud sessions, and real-time collaboration.
ApproachLed information architects and visual designers in two-week Scrum sprints — personas, journey maps, wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and dev liaison.
OutcomePlatform shipped on schedule; additional pages designed as new stakeholder requirements emerged post-launch.
Career history

25 years building design at the enterprise level.

From building a 21-person department from scratch at Bookspan to directing UX at IBM and Accenture, Hayes has been the person who shapes how teams design, how processes run, and how users experience the final product.

HCi
Designer / Director / Owner
2018 – 2023

Visual and UI design, UX, and brand work across independent client engagements. Wireframes, prototypes, user flows, corporate branding, icon systems, and advertising campaigns.

Morgan Stanley
UX Design Consultant (Contract)
2017

Produced annotated black-and-white wireframes and Axure prototypes for complex financial product interfaces. Educated staff and management on agile and scrum delivery methods.

Accenture
Design Delivery Manager
2014 – 2016

Led a large interactive and visual design engagement using Agile/Scrum for Prudential Insurance. Supervised 3 designers through the full delivery lifecycle with weekly stakeholder reviews.

  • Heuristic evaluations and information architecture
  • Journey maps, user flows, annotated wireframes and prototypes
  • Whiteboard sessions with BAs and client to develop requirements
IBM
UX Director
2013 – 2014

Led information architects and visual designers in two-week Scrum sprints as both individual contributor and manager across the full project lifecycle.

  • Heuristic scorecard analysis, design and IA recommendations
  • Persona creation, user journey mapping, and flow diagrams
  • Hands-on wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and prototypes
  • Developer liaison through full delivery lifecycle
Honeywell
UX Design Manager
2010 – 2013

Led UX and PM for the launch of a B2B e-commerce platform — transaction design, product marketing, checkout, and invoice management grounded in research and testing.

Bookspan
Executive Creative Director
1999 – 2009

Started as art director, then built and scaled a four-department organization — front-end programming, UX/UI design, project management, and editorial — supporting niche e-commerce sites across books, music, and DVD.

  • Grew from individual contributor to leading 21 staff across 4 direct reports
  • Held full budget responsibility for staff and freelancers across the department
  • Owned hiring, performance reviews, and terminations for the entire organization
  • Ran daily agile-style standups to manage capacity, velocity, and quality
  • Supported editorial, marketing, technology updates, and new site launches
Core capabilities

What I bring to a leadership role.

UX Strategy

Stakeholder alignment, research programs, information architecture, and experience vision across complex product ecosystems.

Team Leadership

Hiring, mentoring, and managing cross-functional design teams. Proven ability to build creative departments from zero.

Agile Delivery

Introducing and running agile/scrum — improving delivery speed without sacrificing design quality.

Visual Design

Corporate identity, UI systems, Illustrator, Photoshop, Axure — hands-on craft paired with executive judgment.

The person behind the work

Design is personal.
So is the way I lead.

I've spent 25+ years in rooms where design decisions get made — stakeholder reviews, sprint demos, hiring conversations, budget meetings. What I've learned is that the best design outcomes come from empathy first: for users, for teammates, and for the business problem you're actually solving.

User empathy, problem solving, product strategy, emotional design, iterative feedback, collaboration, and systems thinking aren't just buzzwords on a resume — they're how I show up in every project, every sprint, every room.

Based in Centerport, NY. Open to senior design leadership roles.

Hayes Cohen — UX and Design Director with his dog, surrounded by design concepts including user empathy, problem solving, emotional design, and systems thinking Concept Illustration
Recommendations

What People Say About
Working With Hayes

From LinkedIn — 25+ years of design leadership.

"Hayes is an extremely talented creative director with an exceptional eye and impeccable design sense. His ability to translate business requirements into elegant, user-friendly experiences was invaluable. He brought a calm, focused leadership style and always kept the user at the center of every decision."
Cheryl
Senior Marketing Executive
"Hayes consistently demonstrated strong leadership skills and an ability to bring clarity to complex UX challenges. He worked seamlessly across disciplines — design, engineering, and product — and always delivered thoughtful, polished work that exceeded expectations."
Jonathan
Product & Technology Leader
"Hayes is a Creative leader with a good eye for what works in the internet medium. He is good at listening to the needs and desires of the marketing team and translating their input into creative solutions that can be deployed."
Todd Christiansen
Global Business Executive — Leading Results and Transformation Through Technology
"Hayes is a tech-savvy, detail-oriented manager who was a key player in redesigning the content management platform for Bookspan's web-based book clubs. I appreciated his guidance in identifying key deliverables and leading cross-functional team discussions around interface design, functional requirements and usability. I would recommend him to anyone who's looking for a design leader on any level."
Peter Mello
UX Professional
"I had the opportunity to work with Hayes while he was managing the development staff for our company's websites and I was lead for the architecture group. When Hayes first started in this position he was able to quickly come up to speed on the architecture and needs of the area, as well as manage the development staff so our projects were delivered on time and with great quality. He is respected by all of the development community and was a pleasure to work with."
Clinton Auterson
Experienced Information Technology Leader
Get in touch

Let's talk about what you're building.

I'm currently open to senior design leadership roles. If you're looking for someone who can shape strategy, build teams, and stay close to the craft — I'd love to hear from you.

info@hayescohen.com · 631-875-0524 · LinkedIn ↗