Susana Chinchilla

Summary

Senior Lead Product Designer with 10+ years of experience spanning graphic design and UX — which means I came into product design already thinking about how things look and communicate before I ever learned to think about how they work. That foundation shows in everything I ship. Specialized in enterprise systems, product-led growth, and AI-powered experiences. Shipped watsonx, Content Services, and Carbon at IBM. Certified IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Coach with experience leading cross-functional teams, running design thinking workshops, and scaling repeatable patterns that improve how people get work done. Founder of Guat, an AI-powered workforce training platform with a provisional patent and a 39-person pilot.

Skills

Enterprise product design AI/ML product design Design systems Interaction design Visual design Information architecture User research Usability testing Workshop facilitation Design thinking PLG strategy Accessibility Dashboards & data visualization Cross-functional leadership Roadmap & strategy Agile & scrum Stakeholder alignment Mentorship & design leadership Figma Adobe Creative Cloud Mural Claude (Anthropic) Cursor Lovable Google Stitch Notion GitHub

Experience

Founder December 2025 – Present

Guat · Austin, TX

Designed, built, and launched an AI-powered workforce training platform that helps businesses reduce communication gaps and lower turnover on frontline teams.

Built the full product solo: UX design, tech stack, and automated delivery pipeline.
Ran a 39-person paid pilot with 92% phrase retention and 4.8/5 confidence impact score.
Filed a provisional patent and formed the LLC.
Selected for the Harvard Business School Foundry founder bootcamp (May 2026). Previously served as UX Advisor for the HBS Foundry product alongside Professor Thomas Eisenmann.
Completed Stanford Online Platform Strategy certificate — Stanford Engineering Center for Global & Online Education (July 2026).

Senior Lead Product Designer March 2022 – November 2025

IBM · Austin, TX

Led design initiatives to create product vision, re-imagine current products for new customer experiences, and shorten time to value. Promoted alignment and cooperation across global teams.

Product-Led Growth (PLG) Sales initiative to allow potential customers to experience products first-hand, converting users to buyers by demonstrating value and better UX. Contributed to 10% revenue increase for IBM Software division.

Created roadmaps for PLG changes for approximately 40 products. Defined 100+ best practices to optimize user experiences and trial-to-conversion.
Facilitated biweekly PLG Design Guild strategy calls and identified product synergy opportunities.
Selected to attend IBM Product Academy for Teams workshop, receiving gold-standard training on the entire product lifecycle.

Carbon Design System Open source code, design resources, and human interface guidelines for products and digital experiences.

Aligned global teams by leading demonstrations of brand-new product features for 40+ designers and engineers.
Developed onboarding resources, including end-to-end onboarding experience for security product used as a model across IBM.
Helped redesign the Carbon Design System website, improving usability. Projected to serve 450,000+ monthly visitors.

Content Services Software-as-a-service that helps organize and control content security across cloud platforms and applications.

First embedded designer on this product. Led a 3-person design team and headed redesign of AWS cloud content services, contributing to $400M+ revenue portfolio.
Ran a 2-day Enterprise Design Thinking kickoff workshop two weeks after joining, establishing the design process for a PM team that had never worked with designers before.
Improved DUX visual design score from not assessed to 72, B+, rated Good — the highest category — in 12 months.

Organized Familia@IBM outreach events, including Code2Code EDT workshop for 50+ young people under-represented in STEM.
Earned IBM Culture Catalyst Award (May 2023) and IBM Special Cash Award (2023) for leading cross-functional critiques, vision sessions, and return-to-office workshop.

UX Designer January 2021 – March 2022

IBM · Austin, TX and London, UK

Led teams of 3 to 9 designers and mentored new hires and interns.

watsonx Orchestrate Software-as-a-service that allows enterprises to create AI agents that interact with 80+ applications.

Led the chat interface workstream for watsonx Orchestrate (enterprise SaaS), partnering with four global design leads. Facilitated workshops, aligned stakeholders on tradeoffs, and drove design from flows to high-fidelity UI to deliver the MVP.
Selected as the sole U.S. representative in the United Kingdom. Led Enterprise Design Thinking workshops with 40+ participants and produced artifacts adopted by 140+ collaborators across product, design, and engineering teams.
Awarded IBM Equity Grant from CEO Arvind Krishna in 2021 for outstanding contributions and leadership in hybrid cloud and AI.
Awarded the IBM Standout Newcomer Award as Problem Solver Extraordinaire in May 2021.

Sr. UX Research Intern and UX Design Co-op Summer 2020 – January 2021

IBM · Remote

Developed user experiences for new products. Became sole intern selected for Patterns Design Program, joining approximately 40 new hires.
Created user personas for three product platforms merged into one experience and conducted competitive analysis for a new product concept.
For Patterns' five-week incubator project, co-created tool for iX Consulting designers to find internal consulting opportunities.

Recognition

IBM Equity Award · CEO Recognition · 2021

Awarded by CEO Arvind Krishna for outstanding contributions and leadership in hybrid cloud and AI.

IBM Culture Catalyst Award · May 2023

Led the way to rebuild culture and collaboration in the Austin Studio for the Business Automation team. Organized regular Design Share reviews, critique sessions, and a return-to-office workshop.

IBM Special Cash Award · 2023

"Our clients' success depends on the talent, passion, dedication and hard work of IBMers like you. Because of your exemplary track record, IBM is confident that you have what it takes to continue making important contributions to our success."

Promotion to Advisory Designer · March 2022

Recognized as a rising star on the Business Automation team. Promoted for leading the Studio/Build design team, building relationships between development and PM stakeholders, and performing well above band level.

IBM Standout Newcomer Award · Problem Solver Extraordinaire · May 2021

"There has yet to be a challenge that Susana hasn't conquered."

UX Advisor · Harvard Business School Foundry

UX feedback, experience audits, and improvement recommendations for HBS Foundry product alongside Professor Thomas Eisenmann.

2025 IBMer watsonx Challenge

Recognized for AI innovation and prompting excellence within IBM's watsonx program.

Education

New York Institute of Technology

M.A. UX/UI Design and Development

4.0 GPA · Summa Cum Laude · Honor's Student

Graduated May 2021

Purchase College, State University of New York

B.F.A. Graphic Design

Magna Cum Laude · GCSF and ADP Aspire Scholarships

Graduated 2016

Westchester Community College

A.A.S. Graphic Design

2014

Certifications & Continuing Education

Enterprise Design Thinking Coach · IBM Platform Strategy · Stanford Online · 2026 HBS Foundry Founder Bootcamp · 2026 Product-Led Growth · Pendo IBM Product Academy IBM Agile Explorer Gen AI Fundamentals AI Assistants L1 Trustworthy AI AI Associate Leader AI Maturity Framework

Community

Board Member · The Latina Foundation · Lead · FoundHERs entrepreneurial community · Mentor · McCombs School of Business, UT Austin RISE and ALPFA · AI Advisory Committee Member · Austin Community College

Led Enterprise Design Thinking workshops globally, in-person and remotely, through IBM and independently at organizations including YWCA Greater Austin, Code2College, The Latina Foundation, UT Austin, McCombs School of Business, and others across the U.S. and internationally.