Brian Williams Email & Phone Number

Charlotte, Nc, Us

Charlotte, North Carolina, United States

Spearheaded the creation and expansion of Rockturn.com, an AI-driven knowledge platform engineered around insights that equip product management and design professionals to navigate the shift from working in output-driven “feature factories” to leading outcome-based, empowered product teams. • Transformed Rockturn from concept to fully operational knowledge engine in six months, launching with over 1,500 meticulously curated topics on business, technology, marketing, and psychology that empower designers and product managers to make impactful, business-shaping decisions.• Curated more than 2,200 principles, methods, standards, and practices for digital product management and design, systematically vetting topics with the highest cross-functional utility to align with Rockturn’s mission of empowering the next generation of design leaders to wield greater strategic influence.• Orchestrated AI-enabled workflows through prompt engineering and LLM training — developing models for content strategy, knowledge discovery, taxonomy, and SEO — systematically generating a 630K-word product design compendium in six weeks, the content equivalent of 10 books.This role reflects my commitment to elevating the design profession and fostering a community of forward-thinking, strategically minded designers prepared to thrive in an AI-augmented future.

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

As Senior Director for UX Design & Strategy, I established DesignOps at Ally as a vital functional area of the design organization, elevating design influence, confidence, craft, and clarity.Through a series of strategic, incremental moves I broadened the scope of its charter from bootstrapping the maintenance of design standards and tools in 2015, to where it is today: a model of design maturity, with a team of experts in dedicated support roles overseeing a broad spectrum of operational concerns, including: • Managing the scope, coherence, utility, scalability, integration, and adoption of Ally's Design System• Orchestrating Design Strategy with principles and heuristics for a range of differentiated customer journeys• Innovating, articulating, and illustrating the present and future state of Ally's visual design language• Pioneering research, training, and design innovation to drive enterprise adoption of Accessibility best practices• Researching and acquiring tools to elevate efficiency, quality, productivity, collaboration, and communication• Facilitating design governance through consultation, cross-functional collaboration, and leadership reviews • Calibrating the ideal methods for design intake, problem-solving, workflow, and reviews • Developing stop-gap mechanisms and tools to enable clear communication and decision-making processes • Innovating ways of managing the proliferation and remediation of design debt• Fostering a culture of professional development through knowledge sharing and structured learning• Leading rotational design squads on special projects with high visibility and growth opportunity• Maintaining a comprehensive talent management toolkit for recruitment, onboarding, and retention• Leading a design guild of UX Managers and Directors to coordinate on culture and engagement initiatives

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

Building on the success of the initial years at Ally, the period from 2012 to 2015 saw a deepening of my commitment to transforming UX design and operations. This phase was characterized by strategic leadership and innovative practices that significantly advanced our design capabilities and organizational impact.During this transformative period at Ally, I orchestrated strategic organizational, operational, and cultural improvements that drove higher engagement, collaboration, and productivity within the design org, extending influence across the enterprise. My leadership was instrumental in reimagining our workspace into a dynamic design studio, optimizing for creativity, collaboration, and efficiency, setting a new standard for design environments.Key Highlights:• Workspace Innovation: Transformed the UX office into a state-of-the-art design studio, significantly increasing ideation and collaboration space, while optimizing for future growth.• Cost Savings & Credibility: Achieved over $1MM in savings by internalizing marketing creative and product design, showcasing our in-house design team's versatility and excellence.• Expanded Design Impact: Took on management of emerging in-house front-end development teams, laying the groundwork for seamless UX/IT collaboration, pivotal for future enterprise-wide initiatives.• Revolutionized Hiring Practices: Overhauled UX hiring processes, attracting top talent with a collective portfolio of over 100 well-known brands, doubling the design headcount.• Next-Gen Design System: Led the development of a comprehensive design system, incorporating Atomic Design principles, which became a cornerstone for consistency across customer journeys.This era marked a significant leap forward in our design maturity, underscored by strategic leadership, operational excellence, and a relentless focus on innovation and quality.

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

In my early years at Ally, I led the charge to revolutionize our approach to design, laying the groundwork for what would become a digital-first financial service leader. I built the UX design team from the ground up, attracting and nurturing top talent that propelled us to deliver an award-winning digital banking platform. This platform not only redefined our customer interactions but also significantly contributed to a $14.7 billion growth in our deposit base. Through resourcefulness and grit, discernment for design quality, and transformative leadership, I contributed to Ally being recognized with numerous industry accolades, solidifying our position as innovators in online banking.Key Highlights:• Team Leadership: Assembled and led a pioneering UX design team, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration.• Digital Transformation: Launched an award-winning digital banking experience, significantly enhancing customer satisfaction and engagement.• Industry Recognition: Garnered numerous awards, affirming Ally's leadership in online banking and design innovation.

Charlotte, North Carolina

Before joining Ally, I played a pivotal role at Wachovia, where I established Standards Based Design for front-end development as an extension of our User-Centered Design practice, and was instrumental in earning Wachovia prestigious industry recognition, including awards from Forrester, Keynote, ComScore, and Webby.• Drove adoption of best practices in front-end development, usability, and accessibility, setting standards for a team of developers and providing consultancy across the enterprise.• Standardized front-end coding methods with an innovative CSS and HTML framework that optimized efficiency, accessibility, and scalability of production markup, while enhancing developer productivity and performance.• Orchestrated a comprehensive suite of technical guidelines, development tools, and design patterns, generating broader consistency, reducing technical debt, and closing the gap between design and development.• Conceived and implemented groundbreaking design patterns, setting new standards for web presentation layer adaptability, accessibility, and efficiency.• Gained widespread visibility as a thought leader through involvement with UX Week, A List Apart, css Zen Garden, and numerous speaking engagements, advocating for the business benefits of accessibility and web standards.• Invented a patented system for mobile web design (pre-iPhone) using CSS techniques to deliver a scalable, device-independent web page to any browser through graceful degradation, making Wachovia a leader in mobile-optimized online banking.• Founded the Wachovia Standards Based Design Collaborative, fostering a community of practice that championed uniform web standards across the organization.

Member of the .gone generation of internet start-ups.

Awarded the Navy Achievement Medal from the Secretary of the Navy for meritorious service during Operation Desert Storm.USMC Third Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Okinawa, Japan 1987-1989USMC Second Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Intelligence Group, Camp Lejeune, NC 1989-1991

Bachelors, Communication

Non-Commissioned Officer