Wealth R&D Design Lead, VP

Wealth R&D Lead Designer

The Wealth Research & Development (R&D) team at State Street is a strategic innovation group focused on designing and delivering next-generation wealth management solutions. This team acts as an incubator for new ideas, leveraging advanced technology, data analytics, and user-centric design to transform how wealth services are delivered.

A central initiative for the team is developing a consumer-facing, AI native wealth management platform that empowers individuals to take control and manage their retirement through providing education and advice they can action on. This solution is designed to simplify complex financial journeys, integrate multiple product areas, and elevate client experience.

As lead Designer for the Wealth R&D team, you will direct and define the end-to-end design strategy for one of State Street's most ambitious, consumer-facing digital initiatives. Your primary focus will be defining how users engage with our solution across onboarding, personalized insights, product navigation, and AI-driven experiences, and you will have a founding role in establishing our design principles and strategy.

You will guide the design vision for consuming-facing financial wellness applications, driving an AI-forward, intuitive, modern experience through close collaboration with internal teams as well as external partners and vendors.

Within this role, you will lead the design of the front-end user experience for a consumer-facing application, partnering across product, engineering, and business teams to deliver innovative digital experiences. Your responsibilities will include:

• Own the conceptual design, UX architecture, and visual direction for core experiences, ensuring a cohesive and differentiated user experience across key customer journeys.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration with R&D, product, engineering, and data teams to define user-centered solutions and translate complex business, technical, and regulatory requirements into intuitive workflows and experiences.
• Partner with product team to provide demos to showcase design concepts, workflows, and AI-forward interactions to leadership, partners, prospective clients, and cross-functional teams.
• Participate directly in user testing, including planning sessions and translating findings into actionable design improvements.
• Own and govern the application design system, interaction standards, and component library, ensuring scalability, consistency, accessibility, and efficient collaboration across product and engineering teams
• Drive the rapid ideation, prototyping, and iteration of new product capabilities, including personalized experiences, financial education, advisory tools, and AI-enabled guidance features
• Set and uphold design quality standards across the platform and steer end to end design roadmap
• Lead potential third-party design engagements to act as the connective layer between internal and external teams; ensuring internal feedback is being captured and incorporated

What we value

These skills will help you succeed in this role:

• Extensive experience leading the design of complex, consumer-facing digital products from concept through launch and continuous optimization
• Preferably experience with design for AI-forward digital products and designing with AI tools
• Ability to plan and conduct user testing sessions and translate user feedback into actionable design improvements, ensuring insights are rapidly integrated into iterative design cycles
• Demonstrate exceptional presentation skills to clearly articulate design decisions, guide stakeholders through concepts and prototypes, and confidently present to internal and external teams.
• Strong systems thinking and the ability to create elegant solutions within a broad ecosystem
• Intellectual curiosity and a passion for applying emerging technologies—including AI, data analytics, and digital wealth innovations—to create transformative customer experiences
• A user-centered mindset with empathy for both advisors and investors
• Collaborate across multiple internal and external teams, drive design alignment, and communicate clearly
• Experience mentoring designers…