Hi. My name is Kit.
I am a human experience designer.
Over the past 20 years I’ve delivered multi-million enterprise projects, coached, managed and mentored over 100 designers, helping them grow into leaders themselves. I’ve worked across industries, from financial institutions to government agencies, shaping work that’s good for users and good for the business. Beyond leading product design teams, I’ve been a design leader, a mentor, public speaker and writer, a product designer, an inventor, a consultant, a non-profit founder, a karate black belt and a loving father of three.
Product and UX Design Leadership
Results that Matter
I’ve consistently delivered results that matter. At PadSplit and at OneMain Financial, I rebuilt the home page and loan application on a new brand for up to 50% conversion and a 15-point NPS gain. At Fannie Mae, I drove $5–10M+ applications with 3x savings in development costs through an enterprise design system.
AI & Design Innovation
I build with AI, I don’t just talk about it. At PadSplit I built an AI-native design system that AI agents read to generate on-brand UI, shipped straight to code — cutting one build from a month to under a week. I also lead design at Answersfrom.me, an AI-native knowledge platform. Black belt in Figma and design systems (not just karate).
Building & Leading Teams
I’ve hired, managed, and coached 100+ designers, many now leading teams of their own. I’m an ADPList Top 100 UX Design Mentor (2026) with 1,000+ pro-bono mentoring minutes. At Fannie Mae I launched a division-wide UX Community of Practice, training 200+ employees to 35% adoption of UX methods.
Brand & Org Impact
At PadSplit I led a company rebrand from concept to production in 3 months and coached the design team to great results and one promotion to senior. I drove brand adoption across sales, marketing, CX, and leadership — and earlier built the enterprise design brand for a 450+ designer org at Capital One.
Here are some of the case studies I’ve worked on in the leadership roles — as a team manager, or as a senior strategic adviser. Also check out OneMain Financial highly successful acquisitions flow, Fannie Mae applications for commercial lenders and Department of Veterans Affairs $18M-saving workflow/form builder.
AI-first
Design Strategy
AI-native design system that agents read to generate on-brand UI, shipped to code — cutting build time from a month to a week.
AI-native Knowledge Sharing Platform
0 → 1 agentic experience with growth loops and +200% user retention through strategic design and enhanced onboarding.
Commercial Lending SaaS
Loan verification B2B app reducing risks and meeting regulatory compliance.
USPS mobile app
Flagship mobile servicing experience for 25M+ USPS customers.
Capital One Branch Transformation
Omni-channel, Apple-recognized ecosystem of products for retail bank spaces.
Capital One Design System and Brand
Enterprise-wide design system and talent brand for a large-scale design org
As a leader, I’m happily sharing my experiences with other designers and technologists. I’m mentoring over 100 designers, frequently speak at design and tech conferences, and write articles about product design, management, philosophy and ethics.
While I am happy to lead others, I am accustomed to contributing myself—as a strategic consultant, or simply as a fellow designer. To me, being a human experience designer means caring deeply about people and using my skills to make their lives better, help my company grow, and develop our society as the whole. Here’s how.
My design approach
I’m a systems thinker.
My brain works in frameworks, journey maps, and complex integrated systems at large scale. I excel at navigating various zoom levels of a design project—from huge enterprise ecosystems and data streams to small UI components and design patterns. It all matters to me, and I love how those things fit together in a product or service I’m designing.
I start with “why”.
I start every design project by clearly defining a problem we’re trying to solve for the people, as well as the business objectives this project is trying to achieve. I’m also thoughtful about the design ethics, and the impact this project might have on the sustainability of our human society as a whole.
I blaze trails.
I love starting from scratch, and I love working on some big hairy problems. I don’t like to move fast and break things, but I sure love to learn fast. I prototype something quickly — with Figma, AI or just paper — to get collaborative insights and validate the idea as soon as possible, then iterate on the solution.
I’ve spent five years as an independent consultant, running my own design company. It was an amazing time of my life, I’ve learned so much working for hundreds of clients from all sorts of different industries from around the globe.
I had a distributed fully remote team of designers, researchers, front-end developers, back-end engineers and product managers to tackle some really challenging problems and deliver all kinds solutions—from enterprise apps and POS systems to branding and marketing websites—on time and on budget.
You can see many more examples of those consulting projects on my Dribbble and Tumblr portfolios.
That’s my story.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out anytime, I’m always looking for new and exciting opportunities! Email me at k.oleynik@gmail.com or send me a message on Twitter or LinkedIn.