Senior Manager, User Experience Design

Vanguard•Malvern, PA

19h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Wealth Management Senior UX Leader is accountable for experience strategy, delivery, and outcomes across a defined product family (Advisor Experience, Portfolio Management, or Wealth Management). This role operates as a peer to senior Product and Engineering leaders, ensuring UX is funded, prioritized, and integrated into portfolio planning while delivering measurable improvements to advisor and client experience. This leader is expected to operate at a portfolio, cross-divisional and ecosystem level, balancing near-term delivery with long-term experience vision, and driving alignment across journeys, platforms, and channels in a highly regulated environment. Roles and Responsibilities 1. Product & Portfolio Partnership Partner with Senior Product and Technology leaders to deeply understand product family strategy, investment priorities, and delivery constraints, and translate them into a clear UX strategy and roadmap. Own UX funding strategy and allocation for the product family, advocating for appropriate investment based on risk, complexity, and experience impact, and making tradeoffs when constraints exist. Actively participate in portfolio level intake and prioritization Act as the UX executive point of view in portfolio planning, quarterly prioritization, and roadmap discussions. 2. Organizational Leadership & Team Health Lead and scale multi-disciplinary UX teams across Product Design, UX Strategy, Content Design, and (where applicable) UX Research & Ops, ensuring clear accountability and strong craft leadership. Coach, mentor, and develop UX managers and UX crew, with a focus on building future leaders and sustaining team health in a constrained, high-expectation environment. Establish clear expectations around quality, velocity, and decision-making, and model executive-level communication and influence. Serve as leader within VXD, shaping and influencing the design community, cross-divisional intersections, and elevating UX as a discipline and practice 3. Experience Strategy & Connected CX Own the product family experience strategy, ensuring alignment to AWM-level CX priorities and cross-cutting initiatives (e.g., connected journeys, desktop strategy, personalization, trust, and planning experiences). Oversee the execution of cross-divisional, cross cutting UX work to ensure the client experience is designed across journeys that transcend divisional boundaries Manage and evolve journey taxonomies, core personas, and experience principles to ensure consistency across channels and offers. Ensure the product family is accountable for addressing top Voice of the Client (VOC) and advisor pain points, tracking progress and outcomes over time. 4. Research, Insights & Measurement Partner closely with UX Research leadership to define research strategy, prioritize discovery, and ensure insights are actionable and directly inform roadmap and investment decisions. Champion evidence-based decision making, balancing qualitative insights, behavioral data, and business outcomes. Establish clear experience success metrics (e.g., task success, adoption, CSAT, advisor efficiency) and ensure UX impact is visible at the portfolio level. 5. Enterprise Leadership & Influence Contribute to the broader AWM experience strategy, helping shift the organization from siloed execution to end-to-end, journey-led delivery. Represent UX in senior forums (e.g., strategy councils, governance, planning discussions), influencing decisions beyond immediate scope. Act as a thought leader and culture carrier, reinforcing human-centered design, accessibility, and client-first thinking across AWM.

Requirements

Minimum eight years related work experience, three years of User Experience or User Interface experience.
Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience in a creative or technical field.

Nice To Haves

Senior UX leadership experience operating at a portfolio or enterprise level, not just individual product teams.
Outside-in perspective on Wealth Management, financial services, or similarly complex, regulated industries, with the ability to challenge internal assumptions.
Demonstrated success leading large, multi-disciplinary UX organizations through ambiguity, funding constraints, and transformation.
Strong executive presence with a track record of influencing Product, Technology, and Business leaders.
Graduate degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Product & Portfolio Partnership Partner with Senior Product and Technology leaders to deeply understand product family strategy, investment priorities, and delivery constraints, and translate them into a clear UX strategy and roadmap.
Own UX funding strategy and allocation for the product family, advocating for appropriate investment based on risk, complexity, and experience impact, and making tradeoffs when constraints exist.
Actively participate in portfolio level intake and prioritization Act as the UX executive point of view in portfolio planning, quarterly prioritization, and roadmap discussions.
Organizational Leadership & Team Health Lead and scale multi-disciplinary UX teams across Product Design, UX Strategy, Content Design, and (where applicable) UX Research & Ops, ensuring clear accountability and strong craft leadership.
Coach, mentor, and develop UX managers and UX crew, with a focus on building future leaders and sustaining team health in a constrained, high-expectation environment.
Establish clear expectations around quality, velocity, and decision-making, and model executive-level communication and influence.
Serve as leader within VXD, shaping and influencing the design community, cross-divisional intersections, and elevating UX as a discipline and practice
Experience Strategy & Connected CX Own the product family experience strategy, ensuring alignment to AWM-level CX priorities and cross-cutting initiatives (e.g., connected journeys, desktop strategy, personalization, trust, and planning experiences).
Oversee the execution of cross-divisional, cross cutting UX work to ensure the client experience is designed across journeys that transcend divisional boundaries Manage and evolve journey taxonomies, core personas, and experience principles to ensure consistency across channels and offers.
Ensure the product family is accountable for addressing top Voice of the Client (VOC) and advisor pain points, tracking progress and outcomes over time.
Research, Insights & Measurement Partner closely with UX Research leadership to define research strategy, prioritize discovery, and ensure insights are actionable and directly inform roadmap and investment decisions.
Champion evidence-based decision making, balancing qualitative insights, behavioral data, and business outcomes.
Establish clear experience success metrics (e.g., task success, adoption, CSAT, advisor efficiency) and ensure UX impact is visible at the portfolio level.
Enterprise Leadership & Influence Contribute to the broader AWM experience strategy, helping shift the organization from siloed execution to end-to-end, journey-led delivery.
Represent UX in senior forums (e.g., strategy councils, governance, planning discussions), influencing decisions beyond immediate scope.
Act as a thought leader and culture carrier, reinforcing human-centered design, accessibility, and client-first thinking across AWM.