Unlocking value together • 2025 Build UX maturity / SET new horizons / create systems & strategies

I'm Uday Gajendar, a versatile, experienced, hands-on design leader who believes people & products can have better relationships. Less frustration, more value. What follows is an overview of my extensive UX/Product Design expertise, leadership style, and approaches to shipping good design – along with strengths like "visual sensemaking", and snapshots of my work. Enjoy!

Be sure to view my collection of portfolio/work samples, and my case study gallery with embedded Figma slides for more examples of my craft. 💎

I am an expert design leader who bridges business needs with human value. With 20+ years at companies like Adobe, Netflix, PayPal, and Microsoft, I simplify complexity into clarity and ease of use. My leadership spans four roles — Evangelist, Catalyst, Advisor, and Ambassador — driving design excellence, innovation, and impact.

I help teams tackle complex product challenges — from 0→1 launches to mature platform redesigns — across SaaS, fintech, automation, and creative tools, always with a focus on better human experiences.

I specialize in navigating the messy middle of product design — wrangling complexity, clarifying ambiguity, and pragmatically delivering value.

I bring a set of values, methods, and superpowers to tackle the challenges of navigating the "messy middle" of complex product development. Let's take a deeper dive!

My leadership philosophy is humanistic + pragmatic — balancing risks, values, curiosity, and safe dialogue to help my teams thrive.

Good design doesn’t come from flashy trends — it comes from defining clear principles, collaborating with clarity, and learning quickly from customers.

My superpowers are making sense of complexity, catalyzing novel concepts, keeping design ops humming, and running workshops that bring teams together.

I create maps & models that anchor conversations, surface dependencies, and clarify complexity — whether mapping solar sales flows, automation functions, or ad platform APIs. It’s how I help teams see invisible patterns, to align on what matters most.

By sketching early and often, I turn abstract ideas into tangible options — whether through quick hand sketches or structured Figma wires. It’s how I help teams see possibilities, compare directions, and build confidence before committing resources.

"Northstar visions" is one of my passions as a designer. It’s how I stretch thinking, shift conversations from constraints to possibilities, and provide teams a compelling target to rally around, to push customer expectations higher.

Design Systems is how I bring order to complexity, and create the foundations for coherent, connective product growth, that also drives engineering velocity with quality & consistency.

I run workshops that cut through the noise, thus helping teams align, decide, and move forward ...fast! All it takes is an hour (or two) for honest conversations guided by candid questions. It doesn't have to take "days" of awkward ice-breakers and trust-falls. We get to solutions quickly.

I've built design ops practices that make collaboration smoother, and helping design, product, and engineering work as an effective, cohesive team with repeatable (and flexible!) rhythms and rituals to keep everyone connected.

I’ve worked hands-on with AI in enterprise. I also lead community conversations, helping teams & leaders explore AI with clarity, care, and practical frameworks.

I help teams maneuver through complexity by bringing thoughtful clarity, intentional velocity, and durable value to both products & organizations.

Let’s find the highest-impact way to work together...and unlock value by moving forward.

Be sure to view my collection of portfolio/work samples, and check out my case study gallery with embedded Figma slides for further evidence of my craft. 💎 Thank you! 🙏🏽

CREATED BY

Uday Gajendar