PBG UX Designer Lead - Executive Director
Purchase, New York
Overview
The Morgan Stanley Wealth Management UX team builds digital experiences that help our clients manage their finances and monitor their investments easily on the Morgan Stanley and ETRADE from Morgan Stanley platforms. We design for two key user bases: our clients, and Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors, whose job it is to guide clients through financial milestones big and small. Our growing team of designers and researchers bring an entrepreneurial spirit to a leading global financial firm. We employ design thinking methods and a user-centered approach to solve real business problems. If you can bring clarity to complexity, design holistically in an immense product ecosystem, and have gone the extra mile to create delight, we want you!
Key Responsibilities:
We are seeking a strong UX leader to oversee end-to-end banking UX initiatives for both Financial Advisor managed and self-directed clients. This leader will set and drive the UX vision for deposits and cash management, differentiating our banking experiences in a competitive landscape. The ED UX Lead will manage a small team of designers, provide UX thought leadership to product and engineering partners, and remain hands-on as needed to define direction and deliver key work.
Wealth Management UX Leads are required to work in-office 4 days a week to collaborate with their business, tech and UX partners.
As the UX lead, you will:
Lead a small team of (3-4) UX designers working on critical banking experiences that focus on cash management money movement and deposits growth.
Guide your team in coming up with innovative design solutions that challenge legacy banking norms and offer simple, intuitive, and emotionally resonant client experiences
Support the growth of a fast‑scaling banking business by quickly cutting through complexity and shipping impactful experiences at pace while maintaining design quality
Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior product and technology stakeholders, ensuring UX is a strategic partner in driving innovation and delivering solutions
Help define UX milestones and UX delivery roadmaps in partnership with the product team to balance design quality with speed to market
Improve our UX working model by enhancing communication, decision-making, and delivery outcomes. Facilitate retrospectives and workshops to evolve how we collaborate with our partners.
Create opportunities for individual growth by providing constructive feedback and acknowledging contributions. Look for opportunities where individual members can develop and grow strengths. Provide clarity on career paths, roles and responsibilities, and promotion requirements.
Provide oversight on the discovery phase by leading collaborative working sessions that define the problem that needs to be solved, sharing research and data, and clarifying success metrics.
Provide thought leadership & vision-setting by acting as a trusted partner to the product team. Establishing and championing a bold, point‑of‑view for the UX vision
Minimize team blockers by listening to team feedback and suggesting ways to address conflict. Help designers negotiate tradeoffs and chart a path forward.
Partner with UX leads to exchange insights, set design standards, align on strategies to grow the firm’s UX maturity, and coordinate dependencies across teams
As a (hands-on) contributor, you will:
Employ a user-centered approach to influence the product vision by using stories from successful initiatives, UX best practices, and data illustrate how a human-centered approach contributes to product success
Create simplicity out of complexity for experiences that have dense data & complex business requirements
Adjust and prioritize design scope effectively in response to changing needs and/or constraints
Push boundaries, when appropriate, by leveraging data driven insights to craft intuitive, engaging, and impactful digital experiences
Present innovative design work to senior management with a clear, compelling narrative to gain alignment and secure buy-in
You have:
A portfolio that demonstrates partnering with multiple departments on successful product releases
At least 10 years of experience working in the field, at least 5 years of experience managing small- to medium-sized teams
Mastery managing the team’s workload and deliverables
Bachelor's degree in design, computer science or related field; master’s degree is a plus
Fluency in design thinking methodologies
A strong sense of design and using a design system
Experience improving UX workflows (w/ AI technology or rethinking internal processes)
Experience working in a collaborative, diverse environment where a multitude of ideas and perspectives are welcomed and shared in the spirit of improving the organization
Active listening skills and the ability to contribute to brainstorms, audits, critiques, whiteboard sessions, etc.
A strong business acumen and ask questions or do research to sharpen it
A high tolerance working in ambiguity and the ability to set the direction for undefined, complex projects
Skill negotiating trade-offs to manage scope and meet delivery commitments
The ability to validate assumptions and uncover the root cause of a problem by testing, learning, and iterating
Experience evangelizing and promoting user-centered design in a large organization
Why Work at Morgan Stanley?
Besides a competitive salary, work life balance, a clear career path, and great benefits, we take the well-being and work satisfaction of our employees seriously. That’s why we put a lot of effort towards creating a safe space for people to be vulnerable, share work, and ask questions that will help them both to grow individually and move their projects forward. You’ll be encouraged to bring your own perspective to conversations, and we will help you understand and put into practice what you naturally do best by amplifying each other’s strengths.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY:
At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated – and we’ve done that for 90 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.
To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices into your browser.
Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.
Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.
For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo.
Skills Required
- At least 10 years of experience in UX design
- At least 5 years of team management experience
- Bachelor's degree in design or related field
- Fluency in design thinking methodologies
- Experience in a collaborative, diverse environment
Morgan Stanley Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Morgan Stanley and has not been reviewed or approved by Morgan Stanley.
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Parental & Family Support — Family support is extensive, with paid parental leave for all parents, adoption and fertility assistance, backup childcare, and eldercare resources. Feedback suggests these programs meaningfully enhance the overall package and help with retention.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage spans medical, dental, vision, mental‑health access, care navigation, and expert second opinions. Convenient primary care access and condition‑specific support reinforce the depth of healthcare coverage.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity compensation and stock ownership are positioned as core motivators that encourage commitment and retention. Feedback suggests education and support are provided to help participants manage equity and related financial benefits.
Morgan Stanley Insights
What We Do
Morgan Stanley mobilizes capital to help governments, corporations, institutions and individuals around the world achieve their financial goals. For over 85 years, the firm’s reputation for using innovative thinking to solve complex problems has been well earned and rarely matched. A consistent industry leader throughout decades of dramatic change in modern finance, Morgan Stanley will continue to break new ground in advising, serving and providing new opportunities for its clients. Morgan Stanley is committed to maintaining the first-class service and high standard of excellence that have always defined the firm. At its foundation are five core values — putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back — that guide its more than 60,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 41 countries.
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