Senior Vice President, Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior Vice President, Product Designer

Company: BNY Mellon

Location: New York, NY, United States

Job Type: Full time

Category: Product Design / Experience Design within Financial Operations

Date Posted: April 21, 2026

Experience Level: Senior (10+ years)

Remote Status: Hybrid

🚀 Role Summary

• Lead the strategic vision and execution of experience design for BNY Mellon's Enterprise Custody Services platform, a critical and complex financial operations environment.

• Drive a significant cultural shift towards evidence-based design decisions, leveraging user research and data to inform product development and strategy.

• Mentor and guide a small team of three designers, fostering a high standard of quality and strategic thinking within the design function.

• Collaborate closely with product owners and engineering leadership to integrate AI-augmented capabilities and redesign end-to-end operational workflows for enhanced efficiency and user experience.

• Focus on systems-level thinking to ensure platform experience coherence across a large, fragmented application landscape.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is positioned as a senior individual contributor with leadership responsibilities, emphasizing strategic influence and design mentorship rather than direct administrative management. The focus is on driving cultural and process change within a complex financial operations domain.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Develop and implement a comprehensive persona framework for the 100+ application platform, grounded in deep research of specialized user roles across settlements, instruction capture, corporate events, tax, and client services.

• Utilize service design methodologies to map, analyze, and redesign end-to-end operational workflows, identifying bottlenecks and opportunities for elimination, automation, or unification of manual processes.

• Champion and implement user research best practices, including contextual inquiry, usability testing, and rigorous synthesis, to ensure design decisions are evidence-based and aligned with operational realities.

• Define and drive platform experience coherence by establishing principles, patterns, and standards that bridge the gap between disparate applications and create a unified user journey.

• Design interaction patterns for human-AI collaboration, focusing on aspects like confidence indicators, escalation paths, transparency contracts, and override mechanisms for newly introduced AI capabilities.

• Mentor and coach three designers, providing critique, strategic direction, and fostering their professional growth, while also influencing product owners and engineers on user experience best practices.

• Support design strategy communication to executive leadership, articulating the connection between design initiatives and tangible operational outcomes and business value.

• Drive the adoption and governance of design systems across a fragmented platform, ensuring consistency and scalability of design solutions.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a strong emphasis on strategic design leadership, service design, and the integration of emerging technologies like AI within a highly regulated financial services context. The expectation is for a hands-on leader who can both strategize and guide practical design execution.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While not explicitly stated, a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Design (e.g., Interaction Design, Industrial Design, Graphic Design), Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field is typically expected for senior design roles. Relevant professional certifications may also be considered.

Experience: 10–12 years of progressive experience in product or experience design, with a significant portion dedicated to service design principles and application.

Required Skills:

• Expertise in service design: mapping end-to-end workflows, creating service blueprints, and designing across multiple channels and touchpoints.

• Demonstrated proficiency in user research methods, including contextual inquiry, usability testing, and research synthesis, with a strong ability to translate findings into actionable design insights.

• Experience developing and implementing persona frameworks or user segmentation models, particularly for complex, multi-role operational environments.

• Strong systems-level thinking ability to understand and design for the entirety of an experience, including workflows, workarounds, handoffs, and failure modes, beyond just the interface.

• Proven track record of influencing product and engineering decisions through compelling design evidence and strategic rationale, rather than solely through design output.

• Experience operating within enterprise, regulated, or high-stakes operational environments, demonstrating comfort with complexity, compliance constraints, and organizational dynamics.

• Excellent design craft combined with robust strategic thinking capabilities, allowing for seamless transition between detailed interaction patterns and high-level platform strategies.

Preferred Skills:

• Practical experience incorporating AI-assisted design tools into daily workflows for research, prototyping, and workflow analysis.

• Experience designing for AI-augmented workflows, focusing on interaction patterns such as confidence indicators, human-in-the-loop decisioning, and explainable AI outputs.

• Familiarity with design system governance and best practices for managing and scaling design systems across a large, fragmented platform.

• Experience with service design in complex environments where the discipline might not have been explicitly named, but the principles of workflow mapping and process intervention were applied.

• Understanding of how significant design opportunities in enterprise settings often lie within operational processes, handoffs, and deeply ingrained assumptions.

📝 Enhancement Note: The qualifications emphasize practical application of advanced design principles in complex, regulated environments, with a strong preference for candidates who have embraced AI tools and understand the nuances of enterprise-level design challenges.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Showcase of service blueprints and detailed end-to-end workflow analyses that demonstrate a deep understanding of complex operational processes.

• Examples of journey maps and user research synthesis that led to significant design interventions or strategic shifts.

• Development and application of persona frameworks or user segmentation models, illustrating how these informed design decisions in a multi-role operational context.

• Case studies demonstrating the ability to design for systems-level coherence across multiple applications or touchpoints within a large platform.

• Documentation of design interventions that simplified, automated, or improved complex manual processes, highlighting the problem, process, and outcome.

Process Documentation:

• Detailed descriptions of the research and analysis process employed to understand complex operational environments and user needs.

• Methodologies used for workflow mapping and redesign, including how pain points were identified and how new workflows were conceptualized.

• Approaches to design system development and governance, particularly in fragmented or legacy system environments.

• Strategies for integrating AI capabilities into user workflows and designing the corresponding human-AI interaction patterns.

• Frameworks for measuring and communicating the impact of design interventions on operational efficiency and user experience.

📝 Enhancement Note: The portfolio requirements are highly specific, emphasizing process, thinking, and impact over visual polish. Candidates are expected to demonstrate their ability to tackle complex operational challenges through structured design methodologies and evidence-based decision-making.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: The provided salary range for this position is between $104,000 and $253,000 USD per year.

Benefits:

• Participation in a competitive 401(k) plan.

• Comprehensive medical insurance.

• Dental insurance.

• Vision insurance.

• Basic life insurance.

• Generous paid time off, including vacation time and sick time.

• Opportunity to utilize paid volunteer time to support community initiatives.

• Access to flexible global resources and tools.

• Wellbeing programs designed to foster personal resilience and financial goals.

Working Hours: The role is expected to involve approximately 40 hours per week, typical for a full-time position. While the role is hybrid, specific in-office days and flexibility will be determined by team and business needs.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range is an estimate and the final compensation will be determined by individual factors such as experience, market location, and specific role responsibilities. BNY Mellon emphasizes a total rewards package that includes salary, potential discretionary bonuses, and comprehensive benefits, reflecting a strong pay-for-performance philosophy.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Financial Services (specifically, Custody Services and Enterprise Operations). BNY Mellon is a global leader in investment management and investment services, influencing a significant portion of the world's investible assets. This industry context implies a need for high accuracy, security, compliance, and robust operational efficiency.

Company Size: BNY Mellon is a large, established financial institution. This size suggests a complex organizational structure, established processes, and potential for significant impact through well-designed operational improvements. For operations professionals, this means opportunities for broad influence and exposure to diverse business areas.

Founded: While the founding date isn't explicitly provided in the job description, BNY Mellon has a long history, tracing its roots back to 1784. This rich history suggests a stable, reputable organization with deep industry expertise and a culture that values tradition alongside innovation.

Team Structure:

• The design team is small, comprising three designers who will be mentored and guided by the Senior Vice President, Product Designer.

• The role is a senior individual contributor, with influence rather than direct administrative management over the team.

• Collaboration is expected to be peer-to-peer with product owners and engineering leadership, indicating a cross-functional, integrated approach to product development.

Methodology:

• Data-driven design: Decisions are explicitly grounded in evidence from user research and data, not subjective opinions.

• AI integration: AI tools are a daily practice for research synthesis, prototyping, workflow analysis, and design system infrastructure.

• Systems thinking: A holistic approach to understanding and improving complex operational environments.

• Service design: Focus on mapping and redesigning end-to-end workflows across multiple touchpoints and channels.

• Iterative improvement: Implied through the continuous need to drive platform experience coherence and integrate new capabilities.

Company Website: https://www.bny.com/

📝 Enhancement Note: BNY Mellon's positioning as a leader in financial services, influencing global assets, and its commitment to innovation through AI, sets a high bar for operational excellence and design. The company culture appears to be shifting towards a more data-driven and technologically advanced approach, particularly within operational domains.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role represents a senior leadership position within the design function, specifically focused on complex operational platforms. It's a senior individual contributor role with significant strategic influence, bridging the gap between high-level business objectives and detailed user experience design for critical financial operations. The scope involves shaping the design strategy for a vast platform and mentoring a design team.

Reporting Structure: The Senior Vice President, Product Designer will work as a peer to product owners and engineering leadership, indicating a collaborative, matrixed reporting environment. While not directly managing administratively, this role will lead the design team through its work and strategic direction. The ultimate reporting line is likely to a higher-level design or product executive.

Operations Impact: The role has a direct impact on the efficiency, accuracy, and scalability of BNY Mellon's Enterprise Custody Services operations. By redesigning workflows, improving user experience, and integrating AI, this position can significantly reduce operational risk, enhance client satisfaction, and drive cost efficiencies within one of the company's most complex domains.

Growth Opportunities:

• Design Leadership: Opportunity to deepen expertise in leading design teams, setting strategic direction, and influencing organizational design practices within a major financial institution.

• Domain Specialization: Develop deep expertise in financial custody operations, a highly specialized and valuable area within the financial services industry.

• AI and Future of Work: Gain hands-on experience designing for human-AI collaboration, positioning oneself at the forefront of technological integration in enterprise operations.

• Platform Strategy: Influence the long-term strategic direction of a multi-application platform, impacting thousands of users and critical business processes.

• Cross-functional Influence: Enhance skills in collaborating with and influencing product management, engineering, and business stakeholders at executive levels.

📝 Enhancement Note: The growth potential is substantial, offering a path to greater leadership, specialized expertise in a critical financial domain, and cutting-edge experience with AI integration in enterprise settings.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: This is a hybrid role, indicating a blend of remote work and in-office presence. BNY Mellon's New York office likely offers a professional, corporate environment conducive to focused work and collaborative meetings.

Office Location(s): The primary location is 240 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10286. This central Manhattan location provides access to a major business hub.

Workspace Context:

• The workspace is expected to be collaborative, with opportunities for direct interaction with product owners, engineering leadership, and the design team.

• Access to necessary tools and technology, including AI tools for design and workflow analysis, will be provided.

• The environment fosters a culture of evidence-based decision-making and continuous improvement, encouraging designers to challenge existing paradigms.

• The role requires operating within an enterprise, regulated environment, suggesting a structured but dynamic workspace focused on delivering critical financial services.

Work Schedule: The standard working hours are approximately 40 hours per week, characteristic of a full-time role. The hybrid nature allows for some flexibility in managing work location, but the demands of a high-stakes operational environment may require adaptability and responsiveness.

📝 Enhancement Note: The hybrid model within a large financial institution in New York City suggests a professional, structured work environment that balances the benefits of remote flexibility with the collaborative needs of complex project work.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: HR or recruiter screening to assess basic qualifications and fit.

• Hiring Manager Interview: Deep dive into experience, leadership style, and strategic thinking, potentially with a focus on service design and complex operational environments.

• Portfolio Review & Presentation: A critical stage where candidates present their work, focusing on process, thinking, and impact. Expect to walk through case studies demonstrating service design, research, and problem-solving in complex settings.

• Cross-functional Interviews: Discussions with product owners and engineering leadership to assess collaboration style, ability to influence, and understanding of enterprise-level challenges.

• Final Interview: Potentially with a senior executive to discuss overall strategy, cultural fit, and long-term vision.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Focus on Process, Not Just Polish: As stated, BNY Mellon values thinking, process, and impact over visual perfection. Clearly articulate your problem-solving methodology.

• Showcase Service Design Expertise: Include detailed service blueprints, journey maps, and workflow analyses that demonstrate your ability to understand and improve complex, end-to-end operational processes.

• Highlight Research and Evidence: Present how user research (contextual inquiry, usability testing) informed your design decisions and led to tangible outcomes.

• Demonstrate Systems Thinking: Explain how you approached platform coherence and designed for interconnected systems rather than isolated interfaces.

• Quantify Impact: Where possible, use metrics or qualitative evidence to show the impact of your design interventions on operational efficiency, risk reduction, or user satisfaction.

• Be Prepared for AI Integration Questions: Discuss your experience or perspective on using AI in design and how you'd approach designing for human-AI collaboration.

Challenge Preparation:

• Service Design Challenge: Be ready to analyze a hypothetical complex operational workflow, identify pain points, and propose design interventions.

• Research Synthesis Challenge: Present how you would synthesize research from diverse operational roles into actionable insights and a coherent persona framework.

• Strategic Thinking Exercise: Discuss how you would approach driving platform experience coherence across a large, fragmented suite of applications.

• Collaboration Scenario: Prepare to discuss how you would influence product and engineering teams to adopt evidence-based design and new UX paradigms.

📝 Enhancement Note: The application process heavily emphasizes practical application of design principles in complex operational settings, with a strong focus on the candidate's thought process and ability to demonstrate impact through their portfolio.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Design & Prototyping Software: Tools such as Figma, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, or similar for creating wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes.

• Service Design Tools: Miro, Mural, or specialized service design software for mapping workflows, creating service blueprints, and facilitating collaborative design sessions.

• User Research Platforms: Tools for conducting remote usability testing, surveys, and interviews (e.g., UserTesting.com, Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey).

• AI-Assisted Tools: The company explicitly mentions using AI for research synthesis, prototyping, and workflow analysis. Candidates are expected to be familiar with or adept at learning such tools.

Analytics & Reporting:

• While not explicitly detailed, experience with analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics) for understanding user behavior and performance metrics would be beneficial.

CRM & Automation:

• Familiarity with enterprise CRM systems (though not explicitly stated as a primary tool for designers, understanding context is useful).

• Understanding of workflow automation principles and how design can support or drive automation initiatives.

• Experience with design system management tools and platforms.

📝 Enhancement Note: The technology stack emphasizes design and research tools, with a specific requirement for familiarity with AI-assisted tools in the design process. The ability to work with and understand complex enterprise systems is crucial.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Evidence-based decision-making: Design choices are driven by data and user research, not just intuition or hierarchy. This promotes objectivity and rigor.

• Systems-level thinking and coherence: A commitment to understanding the holistic user experience and driving consistency across a complex platform.

• Innovation through AI: An embrace of new technologies, particularly AI, to enhance operational efficiency and user capabilities.

• Collaboration and Influence: A culture that values cross-functional partnerships and the ability of design to influence product and engineering direction.

• Focus on Impact: Design work is measured by its contribution to operational outcomes, efficiency, and business value.

• Continuous Improvement: An ongoing effort to redesign and optimize complex workflows and user experiences.

Collaboration Style:

• Peer-to-peer collaboration: Working alongside product owners and engineering leadership to co-create solutions.

• Mentorship and coaching: A supportive environment where senior designers guide and develop more junior team members.

• Evidence-driven discourse: Discussions are expected to be grounded in research findings and data.

• Cross-functional integration: Design is positioned as an integral part of the product development lifecycle, not an isolated function.

• Openness to new methods: Willingness to adopt and integrate new tools and approaches, such as AI in design.

📝 Enhancement Note: The culture emphasizes intellectual rigor, collaborative problem-solving, and a forward-thinking approach to technology integration within a traditionally conservative industry.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Complexity of the Platform: Navigating and redesigning user experiences across over a hundred applications within a highly regulated financial services environment is inherently complex.

• Cultural Inertia: Shifting entrenched operational practices and mindsets towards a more evidence-based and user-centric design approach requires significant influence and persistence.

• Fragmented Systems: Driving platform experience coherence across applications built at different times by different teams presents a significant architectural and design challenge.

• Human-AI Integration Design: Designing effective and trustworthy interactions between humans and AI for critical operational tasks is a nascent and complex field.

• Balancing Strategy and Craft: The role requires a senior leader who can both set high-level strategy and maintain a strong connection to the practicalities of hands-on design execution.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Deep Dive into Financial Operations: Gain unparalleled expertise in the intricacies of custody services, a critical niche within global finance.

• Advanced AI Design Practices: Become a leader in designing for human-AI collaboration in enterprise settings.

• Large-Scale Design System Implementation: Develop skills in governing and scaling design systems across vast, complex platforms.

• Executive Communication and Influence: Hone abilities to articulate design strategy and impact to senior leadership within a major financial institution.

• Mentorship and Team Leadership: Grow leadership capabilities by guiding and developing a design team.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges are significant but directly tied to substantial growth opportunities, particularly in specialized areas like AI design and complex enterprise operations.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe a time you led a significant design transformation within a complex, regulated operational environment. What were the key challenges and how did you overcome them?" (Focus on service design, systems thinking, and influencing stakeholders).

• "How would you approach building a unified persona framework for an organization with dozens of distinct operational roles across hundreds of applications? What research methods would you prioritize?" (Highlight research rigor and the ability to synthesize complex information).

• "Imagine we're introducing AI for automated exception triage. What are the critical design considerations for human-AI collaboration to ensure trust, transparency, and effective decision-making?" (Demonstrate understanding of AI interaction patterns and user trust).

Company & Culture Questions:

• "What excites you most about BNY Mellon's mission and the opportunity to redesign Enterprise Custody Services?" (Show genuine interest and understanding of the company's context).

• "How would you foster a culture of evidence-based design and AI adoption within a new design team and across product/engineering partners?" (Discuss your leadership and change management approach).

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Structure Your Narrative: For each case study, clearly articulate the problem, your process (research, analysis, ideation), the solution, and the measurable impact.

• Emphasize Process and Thinking: Walk through your service blueprints, workflow maps, and research synthesis. Explain why you made certain decisions.

• Show, Don't Just Tell: Use visuals effectively, but be prepared to discuss the underlying strategic thinking and operational context.

• Highlight Collaboration: Explain how you worked with product, engineering, and business stakeholders.

• Be Ready for Deep Dives: Anticipate questions about specific design choices, research methodologies, and how you handled constraints or challenges.

• Connect to BNY Mellon: Briefly explain how your experience and approach align with the company's stated values and the specific challenges of this role.

📝 Enhancement Note: Interview preparation should focus on demonstrating a deep understanding of service design, systems thinking, user research, and the ability to influence within a complex, regulated enterprise environment, with a particular emphasis on AI integration and evidence-based practices.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Senior Vice President, Product Designer position at BNY Mellon:

• Submit your application through the provided Oracle Cloud portal link.

• Tailor your resume: Highlight your experience in service design, user research, persona development, systems thinking, and working within enterprise/regulated environments. Use keywords from the job description, such as "workflow analysis," "platform coherence," and "human-AI collaboration."

• Curate your portfolio: Select case studies that best demonstrate your process, thinking, and impact in complex operational settings. Prioritize service blueprints, workflow analyses, research synthesis, and evidence of influencing decisions. Be prepared to discuss your approach to AI integration.

• Prepare your presentation: Practice walking through your portfolio case studies, focusing on the problem, your process, the solution, and the measurable outcomes. Be ready to articulate your strategic vision and leadership approach.

• Research BNY Mellon: Understand their business, their position in the financial services industry, and their stated values regarding innovation, AI, and evidence-based design. This will help you tailor your responses and demonstrate cultural fit.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.