Chaitanya Reddy J
UX leader operating at Director scope
Signal over noise
I build UX organizations that move at the speed of the business: through AI-integrated product delivery, cross-functional leadership and design strategy.
17+ years enterprise product / AI-Integrated SDLC / USA · APAC
Leadership philosophy
Strategic foresight
Zero incremental cost - AI guardrails ahead of industry standard
Stood up CBRE's enterprise AI guardrails - evaluation scorecards, usage governance and a cross-product enablement program, before AI adoption became industry standard, at zero incremental tooling cost.
Data driven decisions
1,500-participant research pool
Built the infrastructure for high-velocity research, then presented design investment to executives in time-to-market and adoption terms.
Systems thinking
20 people, 15 products
Designed the allocation frameworks and governance that let a 14-person team support a 15-product portfolio without dependency on any one person through multiple transitions.
Cross-functional excellence
50 people certified, over 200 trained, 76% rated it highly relevant
Ran NN/g training across Product, UX, Engineering and Change Management, so we have a shared language across functions.
“She leads beyond the boundaries of her function – influencing direction, bringing stakeholders along, and translating design thinking into outcomes that resonate at the business level. She’s exactly the kind of person who raises the ceiling on what a team believes it can do.”
Case studies
01
Case study 1
AI-Driven SDLC Transformation
14 → 5 days · average feature cycle, before AI tooling vs. after
AI tooling & integration, strategic initiative ownership, enterprise leadership, design systems at scale.
02
Case study 2
Scaling AI-Driven SDLC Transformation to Enterprise Scope
5 → 0 · governance challenges resolved to zero open blockers at enterprise scale
Governance design, org enablement, infrastructure thinking
03
Case study 3
Building CBRE’s APAC UX Function from Zero
Org building, global team leadership, talent strategy
04
Case study 4
Standardization of digital-gap research
6 domains · 40+ sub-activities mapped from 10 users in 2 weeks (now the business segment standard)
Framework invention, Research-to-roadmap, IA & Taxonomy
05
Case study 5
Unified platform enablement – UX Direction
Multi-product UX governance, global research, strategic planning, cross-functional alignment at scale
06
Case study 6
Operational Maturity & ROI
Design quality governance, centralized research repositories, UX operations & ROI measurement, governed AI adoption at scale
I measure my leadership by what keeps
working when I’m not in the room.
By the time I left, the teams I hired were still in place, the governance model was still running and the AI infrastructure was still shipping. That was the point of the work.
Career history
CBRE Inc.: Senior Manager, Product User Experience
Role operating at Director-equivalent scope
May 2022 – Present
Leading enterprise UX transformation across a global portfolio, embedding AI into the SDLC and building the organizational capability to sustain it.
Delivery & Tooling
- Builder.io + Figma Make embedded in core workflows
- Zero-cost 100-seat Figma sandbox, which doubled prototyping capacity
- Cross-functional AI councils aligned to go-to-market
Measurement & Impact
- UX measurement framework across 15 products
- AI-enhanced feedback tools lifted research adoption
- Strategic redesigns measurably improved satisfaction & engagement
Org & Talent
- 14-person design & research org across geographies
- 50 team members certified through structured L&D
- 30% faster time-to-market through process redesign
CBRE Inc.: Manager, User Experience
April 2020 – April 2022
0 → 20
team across 3 countries in <2 years
Building at scale
- 20-person UX team built from zero across India, China, Australia
- Global resource allocation across 3 lines of business
- Scalable structures for consistent delivery at enterprise standard
Product adoption
- Drove adoption through targeted cultural transformation
- Cross-functional partnerships embedded design into core dev process
- Market-specific design strategies lifted engagement across regions
Product leadership
- Owned UX for CBRE’s Property Management suite
- Led end-to-end design strategy, discovery through delivery
- Set design excellence standards across the portfolio
“…tireless focus on delivering real value. She’s an organizational efficiency champion currently overseeing our AI prototyping exploration, and truly exemplifies what it means to be someone you can count on.”
Chris Quinn · Senior UX Director, CBRE
Direct manager · February 2026
Infosys Ltd.: Manager, User Experience
May 2018 – February 2020
10+
active accounts.
Multi million-dollar revenue secured.
Client growth
- 10+ active accounts, multi-million-dollar programs secured
- Landed NextEra, Tomra, and SCI as anchor clients
- Long-term partnerships beyond single projects
Team building
- Recruited and on-boarded 10+ UX professionals from scratch
- Built a net-new division’s foundational team
- Grew ICs into leadership through continuous L&D
Delivery
- End-to-end delivery across geographies and verticals
- Multiple concurrent multi-million-dollar programs, consistently on standard
- Reputation for quality that drove repeat account growth
“Chaitanya built and led global teams of UX designers and researchers. She nurtured talent and created a vibrant team culture. She also worked in partnership with cross-functional leaders to develop UX strategy, resourcing plans, and operational approaches.”
Laura Hahn · VP, CBRE
Direct manager · November 2023
Oracle: Senior Designer, User Experience
October 2016 – April 2018
$6B+
revenue product
Design leadership
- Set UX direction for a $6B+ enterprise cloud platform
- Embedded stakeholder feedback into every design cycle
- Connected UX outcomes directly to business strategy
Design systems
- Built Oracle’s first corporate UX design guidelines
- Created reusable pattern libraries and component architecture
- Cut design-to-dev handoff time across product lines
Research
- Introduced mixed-method research: card sorting, interviews, usability testing
- Shifted the team from assumption-based to insight-driven decisions
- Built research capability that outlasted the project
Independent Consultant & Founder
May 2015 – September 2016
3 countries
Client base in India, Vietnam and China
Founding the venture
- Left consulting to found a digital product, design & merchandise studio
- Delivered solo, end-to-end, across multiple client engagements
- Built proprietary products under a lean, one-person model
Craft & global grounding
- Built UX craft hands-on across India, Vietnam, and China
- Took on freelance digital-transformation work for local businesses
- Built the cross-cultural fluency that later shaped global team leadership
Earlier experience
Senior consultant, Oracle applications
2012 to 2015 – Infosys Ltd
- End-to-end Oracle CRM delivery, requirements through deployment
- Owned change management and stakeholder adoption
Consultant, Oracle applications
2007 to 2012 – Tech Mahindra
- Oracle SCM delivery: requirements, configuration, deployment
- Process improvements that built the foundation for the later move into UX
“Chaitanya for me has set a benchmark for what a manager and a leader should be. She has a level of emotional intelligence rarely found these days.”
Shravan Kohli · National Lead, Bajaj Finserv
Direct report · April 2023
What I bring
Experience & reach
- Global team leadership – built UX orgs across the USA, India, China, and Australia
- Enterprise at scale – 17+ years across CBRE, Infosys, and Oracle, incl. enterprise CRM delivery
- Organizational growth – scaled UX functions from zero to 20+ person global teams
- Measurable business impact – design decisions consistently tied to quantifiable outcomes
Differentiated capabilities
- Strategy and execution – set direction and deliver outcomes without delegating one for the other
- Organizational builder – the output I care most about is the team itself. Design work follows from that
- Business fluency – translates design impact for C-level audiences
- AI and emerging tech – hands-on implementation and governance in enterprise contexts
- Global perspective – scales design while respecting local context
FAQs
TEAM BUILDING
How do you build and scale UX teams across different markets?
Built UX orgs from zero across the US, India, China, and Australia to a 24-person global team. The method has three parts. Hiring goes to people with cultural fluency, because that’s the hardest thing to teach. Standards go in early, before habits form. People are grown into leadership rather than hired laterally into it. Global consistency and local adaptation require each other, these are not tradeoffs.
BUSINESS IMPACT
What’s your approach to demonstrating UX ROI?
I scope UX into business cases before they’re submitted, present quarterly at the C-level, and negotiate tooling so capability grows faster than spend.
STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT
How do you handle stakeholder conflicts about design decisions?
Conflict usually means alignment happened too late, so I try & get there earlier: workshops at problem-framing, evidence-based presentations and rapid prototypes that make disagreements concrete. When conflict does arise, I refocus everyone on shared outcomes, not competing preferences.
DELIVERY
How do you integrate UX research into fast-paced development cycles?
Dual-track delivery: discovery runs parallel to build, so research informs the next sprint instead of blocking it. Ran this across a 15-product portfolio at CBRE, mixing usability testing, interviews, and card sorting as each decision required. The goal of research here is to reduce rework. Anything that adds process without reducing rework gets cut.
PEOPLE LEADERSHIP
What’s your strategy for mentoring and developing design talent?
Career growth runs on structured frameworks. Levels, expectations and reviews are written down. At CBRE this meant 50 team members reaching L&D targets, including NN/g AI certification, with clear IC-to-leadership pathways. I look for high potential and invest in coaching, challenge, and visibility.
COLLABORATION
What’s your approach to cross-functional collaboration?
A connector across design, engineering, product, and business. The job is shared decisions, not lobbying. At CBRE I set up cross-functional product councils that embedded design into strategic planning, not just delivery. Tools help, relationships and shared accountability do more of the work.
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
How do you adapt UX strategies for different cultural markets?
Cultural adaptation is a research problem. I treat it with the same rigor as any other one. I’ve learned this building teams across India, China, Australia, and the US. Global standards are the default, local teams can override them when the market gives them a reason to.. The result is design that travels without losing relevance.
LEADERSHIP TRANSITION
How do you approach your first 90 days in a new leadership role?
In the first month, the work is mostly listening. In the second, it moves to building trust with the leads and finding the two or three problems worth fixing first. By the third, changes start shipping
PEOPLE LEADERSHIP
How do you lead a design team through restructuring?
I tell people directly, and I don’t pretend the news is painless. People hear hard news from me before they hear it anywhere else. Performance management is continuous, so no exit is a surprise. When a decision isn’t mine to reverse, my job is executing it with dignity and protecting the team that remains. Through two years of AI-driven restructuring, we had zero regretted attrition, the people we fought to keep- stayed.
OPEN TO OPPORTUNITIES
If my work resonates – let’s talk.
Strategic leadership, organizational design, and hands-on delivery for real business & product challenges. If that’s the kind of thinking your team needs, I’d welcome the conversation.
BOOK A 30 MINUTE CALL