Director, UX Design

About this role As Director of UX, you will lead and develop a team of UX professionals while remaining actively engaged in the work. This is a player-coach role that combines people leadership, UX strategy, hands‑on design contribution, mentorship, and cross‑functional collaboration. You will help shape UX strategy and execution across Gartner’s products and digital platforms, working directly with Product, Engineering, Business and Technology Insights, Brand, and business stakeholders to solve complex customer problems.

You will contribute to discovery, research, journey mapping, ideation, prototyping, design reviews, and validation while setting a high standard for the team’s work. You will also help advance Gartner’s AI capabilities by building an AI‑focused UX culture, encouraging responsible experimentation, creating AI prototypes, and training the team to use emerging AI tools and methods effectively. Success in this role requires the ability to move fluidly between strategic leadership, hands‑on design work, coaching, and delivery.

Lead, coach, and develop a growing team of UX professionals supporting multiple products and customer experiences. Serve as a hands‑on UX leader while defining and executing UX strategy across key products and initiatives, contributing directly to research, discovery, ideation, prototyping, design, testing, and design reviews. Balance individual UX contribution with team leadership, ensuring both delivery and talent development remain priorities. Set clear expectations for UX quality, process, collaboration, accessibility, and customer‑centered decision‑making.

Establish an AI‑focused, human‑centered UX culture by identifying opportunities for AI‑enabled experiences, workflows, and product improvements. Explore and demonstrate the use of AI tools in UX research, ideation, prototyping, testing, and delivery; guide rapid AI prototypes, proofs of concept, and design experiments. Develop training, coaching, and enablement programs while mentoring team members through hands‑on feedback, design critiques, collaborative problem‑solving, and skill development.

Promote responsible AI design principles and foster a culture of continuous learning, user research, experimentation, and Design Thinking. Partner across Product, Engineering, Business and Technology Insights, Brand, Marketing, and business teams to translate customer needs into clear, useful, feasible, and valuable experiences. Build a positive, creative, and inclusive team environment while leading and influencing cross‑functional and geographically distributed teams.

8+ years of experience in UX, product design, interaction design, design research, information architecture, or related fields, including 3+ years managing and developing UX or Product Design professionals. Demonstrated success in a player‑coach leadership role, balancing hands‑on UX execution with people management and strategic leadership. A strong portfolio demonstrating end‑to‑end UX work, including discovery, research, interaction design, prototyping, testing, and delivery.

Experience defining UX strategy and leading execution across multiple products or initiatives. Demonstrated experience using AI tools or AI‑enabled workflows to support UX research, ideation, prototyping, experimentation, or product development. Experience leading teams through AI adoption, UX transformation, or the development of AI‑powered products and experiences, with a track record of encouraging experimentation and turning emerging technology concepts into prototypes or validated product opportunities.

Experience providing actionable feedback through design critiques, mentorship, and collaborative working…