Betsy Bland Email & Phone Number

Vienna, Va, Us

I'm looking for my next opportunity to lead digital transformation and experience innovation with a focus on AI-driven personalization. With 20 years of experience across design, product strategy, and team leadership, I’m passionate about making complex systems user-friendly and customer-centered. I thrive at the intersection of technology and human-centered design, and I'm ready to bring that expertise to a new industry. Whether it's a full-time role or a fractional leadership position, I’m excited to work with organizations that want to take their customer experience to the next level. Let’s connect and explore how we can create impactful change together!While looking, I'm also volunteering across multiple organizations. Including: - Vienna Youth Lacrosse coaching 3rd/4th and 5th/6th grade girls lacrosse teams. Responsible for managing the team, planning practice training sessions, gameplay strategy, team dynamics, and more.- Westwood Swim Team Co-Representative and Manager. Responsible for budget planning and management; league representation; liaison between coaches, volunteers, parents, and club; software evaluation, procurement, and management; designing, building, and maintaining team website; swim meet planning and orchestration- Early-stage startup advisor

I recently launched Ghost Pepper Studio LLC, a boutique consultancy focused on transforming customer experience through AI-driven personalization and user-centered design. I work with organizations to simplify complex systems, create intuitive solutions, and connect technology with real human needs. If you're looking to elevate your customer experience and drive impactful change, let’s connect—I’d love to help make it happen.Here’s what I deliver:- Tailored AI-Powered Solutions: Implement AI tools that enhance personalization, drive engagement, and create meaningful user interactions.- Seamless User Journeys: Design intuitive experiences that reduce friction, making it easier for customers to connect with your products and services.- Holistic Differentiation Strategies: Develop unique strategies that set your brand apart, emphasizing a cohesive, customer-centric approach to stand out in the market.

Boston, Ma, Us

Developed comprehensive, directly applicable customer segmentation: Collaborated with Brand Customer Insights to complete the most in-depth lifestage+behavioral segmentation work done at Wayfair. This surfaced revenue-driving opportunities for customers. Delivered a 2025+ experience vision and strategy: Co-wrote and directed the design of future experience that leverages personalization, genAI, curation, and dynamic pages to help customers hone in on the best products and build looks they’ll love. Our vision sizzle reel was featured in the 2023 Wayfair Supplier Summit.Redesigned our flagship brand experience: Led the co-creation a new microsite with curation experts for the Kelly Clarkson Montana Collection launch. This collection was featured in notable placements such as WWD, Better Homes & Gardens, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and The Kelly Clarkson Show. Drove a “fix ‘n’ shift” approach for re-platforming: Led team in identifying, solving for, and collaborating across functions to fix fundamental usability issues as part of a comprehensive site and app re-platforming effort.Enabled content creation and management democratization: Led team in evolving our design system, core components, and home-grown CMS to create an intuitive, scalable content and experience design ecosystem.

Mclean, Va, Us

Mclean, Va, Us

Lead team of design managers and individual contributors supporting ongoing engagement through millions of credit card replacements that result in lost revenue and increased operating costs.Design Delivery: Lead team in designing and refining communications, ongoing workflow improvements, and new features that resulted in a 30% reduction in call volume. Strategy: Lead team to use customer research and insights to shape experience and product strategy tied to clear, cascading (OKRs) targeting recovery of lost spend.Team Glue: Build team culture of connection and trust, enabling the team to take risks and navigate difficult transitions, including COVID-19, while continuing delivery, growth, and development.

Tysons Corner, Va, Us

Tysons Corner, Va, Us

Manage team of 22 mixed-skillset managers and individual contributors supporting product onboarding, help documentation, localization, and online Community of 25k+ members. • Customer-Focused Coach: Introduce team to human-centered design approach to improve MicroStrategy’s support materials, product onboarding, and online Community site built on Salesforce Community Cloud.• Data-Informed Design and Product Management: Build a culture of experimentation within Customer Experience team. Research methods include analytics, interviews, surveys, usability testing, and A/B testing.• Leadership: Lead initiatives ranging from team building activities, shared vision definition exercises, to mentoring female MicroStrategists.

Alexandria, Virginia, Us

• Directs company-wide user research and design initiatives to improve product engagement and retention for a suite of digital wealth management products• Promotes a customer-focused culture and integrates user empathy at each stage of the product development process by mentoring company-wide teams on human-centered design and Design Thinking principles• Guides strategic direction by conducting user research exercises and mapping customer needs across the financial services industry using interviews, surveys, and cutting-edge research methods• Lead team in defining metrics to measure success and failure of product experiments• Leads and mentors the design team, coaching them through career development conversations, goal-setting, and provides direct, actionable feedback• Leverages customer insights and designs digital solutions that resulted in greater customer satisfaction, improved task completion from 24% to 76%, and increased customer engagement by 8-10%• Promotes diversity of thought and hosts local UX workshops to introduce and discuss innovative user research and design practices, including Lean UX, Jobs to Be Done, Mental Models, Design Thinking, and more

Alexandria, Virginia, Us

Lead design from conceptualization and implementation of The Motley Fool’s new SEC-regulated subsidiary, Motley Fool Wealth Management. Responsible for design discovery, ideation, front-end implementation, gathering customer feedback, and rapid iteration.Motley Fool TouchstoneLead product design for Touchstone, an algorithmic investing advice service. Motley Fool Wealth Management Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs)Product designer for the launch and ongoing iterations of Motley Fool Wealth SMAs.

Falls Church, Va, Us

User Experience Practice & Usability Center of Excellence· Lead the gathering and analysis of user requirements for a wide array of clients, capturing the user needs through workflows, wireframes and specification documents.· Conducted research through multiple methods including heuristic reviews, surveys, user interviews, and usability tests to develop intuitive information architecture and interaction design.· Successfully translated designs into well-structured, accessible XHTML & CSS for multiple web-based applications; worked with system developers to integrate the markup with ColdFusion and Java.Water Security Network (WaterISAC)· Assisted client in defining and developing marketing strategy.· Conducted content audit of existing site, redesigned the IA to realign with marketing strategies. Designed new branding/logos and updated look and feel. Converted designs to cross-browser (X)HTML/CSS, utilizing Blueprint CSS framework.· Conducted content audit of secure portal, developed information architecture, taxonomy for Jive/Clearspace Social networking platform. Served as Content Management team lead and established content migration and management strategy.· Conducted user interviews and analysis of portal usage to identify areas for improvement and growth. Developed strategy for improving usability and utility of portal.

Worldwide, Oo

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)· Researched best practices to make the existing user interface design more effective; prototyped solutions in working HTML and JavaScript mock-ups for client/user review.· Developed interface enhancements and offline data entry using Java, JSP, Struts, HTML, and JavaScript.

Montreal, Quebec, Ca

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)· Served as point person for usability design, 508 compliance, and HTML/CSS coding issues.· Developed over 100 HTML/JavaScript pages for a transactional website using Dreamweaver and Photoshop.

B.A, Computer Science; Visual Art

Study Abroad, Guatemala, El Salvador, & Nicaragua

High School Diploma, High School/Secondary Diplomas And Certificates

Grade School