PBG UX Designer Lead - Executive Director

PBG UX Designer Lead - Executive Director

Purchase, New York

The Morgan Stanley Wealth Management UX team builds digital experiences that help our clients manage their finances and monitor their investments easily on the Morgan Stanley and ETRADE from Morgan Stanley platforms. We design for two key user bases: our clients, and Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors, whose job it is to guide clients through financial milestones big and small. Our growing team of designers and researchers bring an entrepreneurial spirit to a leading global financial firm. We employ design thinking methods and a user-centered approach to solve real business problems. If you can bring clarity to complexity, design holistically in an immense product ecosystem, and have gone the extra mile to create delight, we want you!

Key Responsibilities:

We are seeking a strong UX leader to oversee end-to-end banking UX initiatives for both Financial Advisor managed and self-directed clients. This leader will set and drive the UX vision for deposits and cash management, differentiating our banking experiences in a competitive landscape. The ED UX Lead will manage a small team of designers, provide UX thought leadership to product and engineering partners, and remain hands-on as needed to define direction and deliver key work.

Wealth Management UX Leads are required to work in-office 4 days a week to collaborate with their business, tech and UX partners. As the UX lead, you will:

• Lead a small team of (3-4) UX designers working on critical banking experiences that focus on cash management money movement and deposits growth.
• Guide your team in coming up with innovative design solutions that challenge legacy banking norms and offer simple, intuitive, and emotionally resonant client experiences
• Support the growth of a fast‑scaling banking business by quickly cutting through complexity and shipping impactful experiences at pace while maintaining design quality
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior product and technology stakeholders, ensuring UX is a strategic partner in driving innovation and delivering solutions
• Help define UX milestones and UX delivery roadmaps in partnership with the product team to balance design quality with speed to market
• Improve our UX working model by enhancing communication, decision-making, and delivery outcomes. Facilitate retrospectives and workshops to evolve how we collaborate with our partners.
• Create opportunities for individual growth by providing constructive feedback and acknowledging contributions. Look for opportunities where individual members can develop and grow strengths. Provide clarity on career paths, roles and responsibilities, and promotion requirements.
• Provide oversight on the discovery phase by leading collaborative working sessions that define the problem that needs to be solved, sharing research and data, and clarifying success metrics.
• Provide thought leadership & vision-setting by acting as a trusted partner to the product team. Establishing and championing a bold, point‑of‑view for the UX vision
• Minimize team blockers by listening to team feedback and suggesting ways to address conflict. Help designers negotiate tradeoffs and chart a path forward.
• Partner with UX leads to exchange insights, set design standards, align on strategies to grow the firm's UX maturity, and coordinate dependencies across teams

As a (hands-on) contributor, you will:

• Employ a user-centered approach to influence the product vision by using stories from successful initiatives, UX best practices, and data illustrate how a human-centered approach contributes to product success
• Create simplicity out of complexity for experiences that have dense data & complex business requirements
• Adjust and prioritize design scope effectively in response to changing needs and/or constraints
• Push boundaries, when appropriate, by leveraging data driven insights to craft intuitive, engaging, and impactful digital experiences
• Present innovative design work to senior management with a clear, compelling narrative to gain alignment and secure buy-in

You have:

• A portfolio that demonstrates partnering with multiple departments on successful product releases
• At least 10 years of experience working in the field, at least 5 years of experience managing small- to medium-sized teams
• Mastery managing the team's workload and deliverables
• Bachelor's degree in design, computer science or related field; master's degree is a plus
• Fluency in design thinking methodologies
• A strong sense of design and using a design system
• Experience improving UX workflows (w/ AI technology or rethinking internal processes)
• Experience working in a collaborative, diverse environment where a multitude of ideas and perspectives are welcomed and shared in the spirit of improving the organization
• Active listening skills and the ability to contribute to brainstorms, audits, critiques, whiteboard sessions, etc.
• A strong business acumen and ask questions or do research to sharpen it
• A high tolerance working in ambiguity and the ability to set the direction for undefined, complex projects
• Skill negotiating trade-offs to manage scope and meet delivery commitments
• The ability to validate assumptions and uncover the root cause of a problem by testing, learning, and iterating
• Experience evangelizing and promoting user-centered design in a large organization

Why Work at Morgan Stanley?

Besides a competitive salary, work life balance, a clear career path, and great benefits, we take the well-being and work satisfaction of our employees seriously. That's why we put a lot of effort towards creating a safe space for people to be vulnerable, share work, and ask questions that will help them both to grow individually and move their projects forward. You'll be encouraged to bring your own perspective to conversations, and we will help you understand and put into practice what you naturally do best by amplifying each other's strengths.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY:

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that's differentiated – and we've done that for 90 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren't just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you'll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There's also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $150,000 and $250,000 per year at the commencement of employment. However, base pay if hired will be determined on an individualized basis and is only part of the total compensation package, which, depending on the position, may also include commission earnings, incentive compensation, discretionary bonuses, other short and long-term incentive packages, and other Morgan Stanley sponsored benefit programs.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.

Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.

For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo.