United States

Ryan Leffel

VP, Head of Design

Introduce yourself, define mentoring expectations and goals. Learn and grow together.

General mentorship

Learn essential burnout prevention techniques and replenish physical and emotional energy.

Managing burnout

Talk to people who have learned to manage their imposter syndrome.

Dealing with imposter syndrome

Understanding factors that lead to a motivated team - recognition, communication and more.

Keeping team members motivated

Understand the process of training, motivating and directing your team members.

Managing people

How to create a positive workplace culture that drives collaboration and productivity?

Fostering a good team culture

Steps to building and maintaining a strong, cohesive and effective team.

Building an effective team

How to determine what is a good balance of skill sets for your organization's needs

Building balanced teams

Tips for transitioning into a new role or company.

Changing roles

How to successfully prepare and position yourself for a job promotion?

How to get promoted

How to ask for a promotion and negotiate for salary raise?

Negotiating a job offer

How to think about design career paths and what progression looks like for designers?

Design career path

Get actionable feedback on your resume or portfolio.

Resume and portfolio review

Practice HR, technical and behavioural interviews with mentors.

Practice mock interviews

Talk to people who've broken into the tech industry and learn their stories.

Breaking into tech

How to set up the team for success by defining and measuring team's performance.

Choosing metrics and team goals

Best practices for running productive design critiques.

Running effective design critiques

How to define and execute a successful launch and managing stakeholders expectations. (eg. MVP)

Launching new products or features

Manage team expectations and get the most out of your meetings.

Running effective meetings

Identify and define potential product problems and generating possible solutions.

Identifying problems vs solutions

Learn how to properly present your work and share ideas and opinions.

Presenting your work with impact

Tips on how to work and collaborate with designers.

Working with designers

How to work with team members with different skill sets but towards a common goal?

Working cross-functionally

Methods and models of exploring, deciding and delivering design.

Building a design process

Managing being the only designer at your company and working with non-designers.

Being the only designer

Explore different generative and evaluative research techniques. User research synthesis and presentation.

Conducting good user research

Ways and resources to improve your design skills.

Improving design skills

Navigating the working relationship with PM's and engineers as a designer.

Working with product and engineering

How to set up product analytics and metrics to track success?

Leveraging Product Analytics

How to create personas, and leverage them in design.

Creating and leveraging user personas

Ways to provide constructive feedback to team members.

Giving effective feedback

How to define an ambitious product vision and how to best communicate it to stakeholders?

Creating a product vision

Tips on how to work and collaborate with engineers and developers.

Working with engineers

InsideOut is a leadership community custom-built for senior leaders of in-house design, creative and experience teams at high profile brands.

Held multiple roles leading user experience visual design, and strategy for responsive e-commerce sites and omni-channel experiences within the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle spaces. Part of the senior leadership team tasked with defining design processes, priorities, capabilities, and driving digital transformation efforts. 

Directs a team of UX and visual designers in the US and London with responsibility for defining an innovative and agile workflow. Established an internal optimization practice, UX research organization, and data analytics process to expand the agency’s offerings.  Leads development of personas, competitive analysis, stakeholder interviews, sitemaps, wireframes, and visual design. Facilitates collaborative design workshops for user testing, design exploration, and validation. Represents the agency as a speaker and thought leader at key industry events. 

Clients include: SoulCycle, 7 For all Mankind, Five Below, Zumiez, Worth NYC, Tommie Copper, Bulbhead, Circa Lighting, Maxtool, Faith Connexion, Beyond Yoga, Johnnie-O, Riachuelo, Scappino, Polywood, Ego, and Z Gallerie.

Established an in-house digital department to integrate principles of UX thinking into existing visual design practices. Defined a user-centered design process, managed contractors, and produced design documentation for agency clients including KPMG, Hewlett Packard, and Crayola.

Designed wireframes, use case scenarios, and process flow documentation for clients including Verizon Wireless, Chase, United, Alpo, Northrup Grumman, and Mondelez.

Hired among the first New York staff to work on Yahoo’s display and text advertising platform. Promoted to oversee a team of designers in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, leading UX strategy and design direction for ad serving platforms. Accountable for consistency and design integrity at the product level. 

Partnered with engineering teams to prioritize product improvements, enhancements, and expedite release cycles. Worked with user researchers, visual designers, and engineers to address user needs. Created use case scenarios, personas, competitive analyses, flows, and wireframes, and assisted in deploying user/product testing. 

Appointed lead designer on the framework team to simplify design processes and create a reusable component library across design, visual, and engineering tracks. Led cross-functional design workshops with engineers, analysts, and project leads, and created a structured design system based on user feedback. Improved overall processes for wireframing, prototyping, and annotation.

Led teams in addressing UI and interaction design challenges for agency clients. Guided UX design and strategy for websites, kiosks, and mobile applications, with emphasis on elevating user experience through content design, structure, and functionality. Created use case scenarios, personas, competitive analyses, flows, and wireframes to support design and development. Earned multiple awards including Horizon Interactive Awards, Omni Awards, and Web Awards Standard of Excellence. 

Clients included: Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Cablevision, Hasbro, Purina, New York University, Parsons, Sharp, and NYC2012.

Ryan Leffel🇺🇸

About Ryan Leffel

Expertise

Sessions with Ryan Leffel

What mentees say