Work with me
I’ve led and co-led design organizations of up to 60+ people at Operative, DigitalOcean and Kaiser Permanente. Now I help product teams get that same leadership—for a few weeks, a few days a week, or one focused AI project.
Where is your team today?
Pick the line that sounds most like you.
“Design feels slow, and we can’t tell why.”
Start with: Audit
“We have designers, but no one leading them.”
Start with: Fractional Head
“We want AI in our workflow, without the mess.”
Start with: AI Workflow
Where I’ve designed and led
Operative
DigitalOcean
Kaiser Permanente
ABB
Oracle
Sun Microsystems
Three engagements
Diagnose
A fast, honest read on what’s holding design back—and a plan your leadership team can act on the next Monday.
Interviews across leadership, design, product and engineering
Process, design-system, accessibility and UX-debt review
Prioritized 90-day plan, presented to your leaders
Lead
An experienced design executive in your leadership room, without a full-time VP salary or a six-month search.
Leadership and coaching for your designers
Rituals, a quality bar and a hiring plan
Roadmap partnership with Product and Engineering
Accelerate
The playbook I used at Operative: AI grounded in your standards, with people accountable for the judgment calls.
AI grounded in your design system and content rules
Design-system, accessibility and microcopy agents
Human checkpoints and an adoption playbook
Proof, not promises · Operative
1
Before
A 20% workforce reduction left fewer designers covering the same five-product portfolio. The embedded model couldn’t stretch any further.
2
The move
I rebuilt Design as an AI-first Center of Excellence: shared standards, self-service tools for Product and Engineering, and AI agents for repeatable checks—with designers owning the judgment calls.
3
After
Agents for design-system, accessibility and microcopy checks were used by 100+ engineers and 10 PMs, helping a smaller team keep delivery moving without lowering the bar.
Read the full case study
100+
Engineers using the agents
10
Product managers using the agents
6
AI workflows, each with a human checkpoint
20%
Smaller team, same five-product roadmap
Is this a fit?
A great fit if…
You have designers, but no design executive setting direction
Product and Engineering are moving faster than your design standards
You want AI in the workflow without losing quality or accessibility
You build complex products: enterprise SaaS, AI platforms or healthcare
Probably not a fit if…
You need a hands-on visual or brand designer to produce assets
You want screens delivered without changing how the team works
You need someone in the office every day
Steve Paoletti
Chief Product Officer, Operative
30 minutes · No pitch deck required
Bring the messiest problem on your product team. I’ll tell you honestly whether I can help.
young.ce@icloud.com · Based in Denver · Working remotely across the US