Ian is available for hire
Hire IanIan Limbaga
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
New York, United States
Toptal member since July 8, 2026
Bio
Ian is a product design leader with over 15 years of experience leading teams across enterprise HR, healthcare, hospitality, fintech, and consumer products. Ian built Inovalon's first unified design system, adopted by four business units, and grew the design team from two to eight. Ian specializes in design strategy and design thinking facilitation. He is an expert in Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, DaVinci Resolve, and adept at Azure DevOps and Jira for large-scale SaaS platforms.
Portfolio
Enterprise Design System
Design SystemsApp UXWeb UXWorkshop FacilitationStakeholder ManagementQualitative User Research+ 22 more
Enterprise Application Portal
App UXWeb PortalsDesign SystemsWorkshop FacilitationDesign Thinking FacilitationAzure DevOps+ 23 more
Data Storytelling: Predicting Employee Turnover
Employee ExperienceEmployee EngagementOrganizational DesignStakeholder ManagementStakeholder AlignmentStakeholder Interviews+ 9 more
Launching AI Coaching App
Artificial Intelligence (AI)Go-to-market (GTM) StrategyCustomer AnalysisVisual StorytellingMiroMURAL+ 14 more
Build Organization Growth Strategy with Key HR Leaders
Design Thinking FacilitationService BlueprintsAffinity MappingConsultingOrganizational DesignEmployee Experience+ 3 more
Increasing Traffic for Enterprise Microsite
Qualitative User ResearchUser Experience StrategyUser Experience (UX)SharePointGraphic DesignVisual Storytelling+ 6 more
Experience
- Visual Storytelling - 15 years
- Employee Experience - 10 years
- JTBD Interviews - 8 years
- User Experience Strategy - 8 years
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) - 4 years
- MURAL - 3 years
- Claude Code - 2 years
- Userlytics - 2 years
Tools
- MURAL
Work Experience
Head of Product and Design
2026 - PRESENT
Stealth AI Startup
- Speaheaded the redesign of core onboarding features for the v2.0 release for a chat-based app with automation and orchestration features.
- Designed a tiered AI safety governance model, establishing behavioral boundaries, risk classification tiers, and escalation protocols, ensuring responsible, predictable AI interactions at scale across all device channels.
- Launched instructional videos on YouTube for the product onboarding.
Technologies: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Customer Analysis, Claude Code, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, MURAL, Miro, Employee Experience, Design Systems, JTBD Interviews, User Experience Strategy, User Experience (UX), Product Management, Design Strategy, Illustration, Digital Storyboards, Web Portals, Product Design, Product Prototyping, UX Prototyping, UX Design, UI Design, AI-powered Product Design, User Interface (UI), Claude, Wireframing, Branding, Web App UX, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Design Leadership, Interactive Prototypes
Product Development and Design Consultant
2025 - PRESENT
Cairya
- Partnered directly with the founder and CPO to design and launch version 1.0, turning research, early user feedback, and market research into insights that influenced feature prioritization.
- Accelerated prototyping, user research, and usability testing with AI tools such as Claude Code and reduced design iteration cycles from seven days to three.
- Drove the design of Cairya's knowledge ingestion and summarization logic by defining user flows, guardrails, and source constraints that reduced AI response drift by nearly 90%.
Technologies: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Claude Code, Machine Learning, Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Customer Analysis, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, MURAL, Miro, Employee Experience, Design Systems, JTBD Interviews, User Experience Strategy, User Experience (UX), Product Management, Design Strategy, Illustration, Digital Storyboards, Web Portals, Product Design, Product Prototyping, UX Prototyping, UX Design, UI Design, Business to Business (B2B), AI-powered Product Design, User Interface (UI), Claude, Wireframing, Branding, Web App UX, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Design Leadership, Interactive Prototypes
Director of Product Design and Strategy
2020 - 2025
Inovalon
- Directed design operations and product design strategy across an $800+ million portfolio of over 40 enterprise SaaS products.
- Grew the design team from two to eight, covering user research, UX, UI, and front-end development.
- Partnered with product, engineering, and marketing from product discovery through launch.
- Established a unified design system and team operating cadence, including intake, critique, design QA, and roadmap reviews, improving speed and quality of decisions across all 30+ product teams.
- Proposed and built Inovalon's first unified design system across four business units: the library included code and usage guidelines adopted by all four business units and fitted into the adoption roadmaps based on each product's tech maturity stack.
- Championed, built, and led the end-to-end user experience design of the Inovalon Application Portal, directing the financial business case and securing C-suite sponsorship to design an end-to-end customer discovery-to-sunset experience.
- Drove AI literacy and AI-assisted design workflows across the design team, pioneering AI tool experimentation via AI design plugins and Claude Code and reducing design approval cycles by two weeks.
Technologies: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Claude Code, Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Customer Analysis, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, MURAL, Miro, Employee Experience, Design Systems, JTBD Interviews, SQL, User Experience Strategy, User Experience (UX), Product Management, Design Strategy, Illustration, Storyboarding, Digital Storyboards, Product Design, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Prototyping, UX Prototyping, UX Design, UI Design, Business to Business (B2B), AI-powered Product Design, User Interface (UI), Claude, Wireframing, Branding, Web App UX, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Design Leadership, Interactive Prototypes
UX and Strategy Consultant
2019 - 2024
Independent Consultant
- Increased access to critical funding resources by nearly 50% via information architecture and navigation redesign of the funding portal for the Asian Development Bank, and was recognized with the Best Collaboration Project 2024 award.
- Designed and launched an interactive innovation and design tool library via SharePoint for Northwestern Mutual, consolidating over 50 tools by product development phase and scaling the practice of design to the enterprise.
- Built and embedded a human-centered design user research practice from scratch inside a 9,000-person regulated organization at Guardian Life Insurance within six months.
Technologies: Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Customer Analysis, Claude Code, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, MURAL, Miro, Employee Experience, Design Systems, JTBD Interviews, User Experience Strategy, User Experience (UX), Design Strategy, Illustration, Storyboarding, Digital Storyboards, Advisory, Web Portals, Product Design, Product Prototyping, UX Prototyping, UX Design, Business to Business (B2B), Branding, Design Leadership, Interactive Prototypes
Principal Management and Business Strategy Consultant
2019 - 2019
IAC Partners
- Drove the systems and people research for Intra-Cellular Therapies, a specialty pharmaceutical company, designing the organizational onboarding strategy for their more than 300% headcount growth.
- Generated $1.2 million in revenue, leading product strategy and business transformation engagement for two major enterprise clients.
- Built the foundational design thinking methodology, embedded in consulting engagements and adopted by the organization to this day.
Technologies: Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Customer Analysis, MURAL, Employee Experience, JTBD Interviews, SQL, User Experience Strategy, User Experience (UX), Design Strategy, Illustration, Storyboarding, Digital Storyboards, Advisory, Business to Business (B2B)
Director of HRIS and People Innovation
2016 - 2018
L'Oréal USA
- Led eight cross-functional innovation squads with 48 – 80 employees across eight teams, delivering L'Oréal's first machine learning-based attrition model and first AI recruitment chatbot.
- Contributed to the machine learning attrition model with 82% probability scoring, which triggered the founding of two new departments: People Analytics and People Innovation.
- Built the first interactive monthly headcount, optimizing the delivery of reports from 300 PDF pages to three interactive views, reducing report processing time from seven days to two days.
Technologies: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Customer Analysis, MURAL, Employee Experience, JTBD Interviews, SQL, User Experience Strategy, User Experience (UX), Product Management, Design Strategy, IT Project Management, Web Portals, Software as a Service (SaaS)
Director of Learning and Talent Systems
2015 - 2016
L'Oréal USA
- Maximized a $10 million budget for North America's SaaS enterprise learning platform serving 85% of over 8,000 employees. Redesigned and optimized automated executive BI dashboarding experience, saving back-end teams almost four weeks of pre-work.
- Launched digital learning avatar, a desktop-based reminder app, contributing to 90% digital marketing education completion rates within target completion dates across 300+ marketing professionals.
- Built L'Oréal's first curated learning program called Learning Bites, reaching remote (e.g., field sales) and low-budget teams with a 30+ percentage points participation jump.
Technologies: Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Employee Experience, SQL, Design Strategy, Storyboarding, Digital Storyboards, IT Project Management, Web Portals, Software as a Service (SaaS), Branding
HRIS Manager
2004 - 2015
L'Oréal USA
- Introduced and built the dashboarding practice within HR by transforming a 100+ page report into three interactive dashboards, establishing modern reporting standards and reducing report generation efforts by up to six weeks.
- Architected report automation and personalization scripts that delivered sectioned reports to specific HR departments, accelerating the delivery of reports to HR leaders from seven days to three.
- Designed self-service ad-hoc reports with summary views, alert indicators, KPI thresholds, and color indicators, cutting manual HR reporting by 4 – 6 hours per person per week.
Technologies: Visual Storytelling, SQL, IT Project Management, Web Portals, Software as a Service (SaaS)
Education
1999 - 1999
Bachelor's Degree in Marine Biology
University of the Philippines - Quezon City, Philippines
Certifications
MARCH 2024 - PRESENT
UX Strategy for VP/Director
Nielsen Norman Group
APRIL 2022 - PRESENT
Product Design for Product Managers
Pragmatic Institute
APRIL 2022 - PRESENT
Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, Business Testing
Strategyzer Methods
SEPTEMBER 2021 - PRESENT
Product Management Foundations
Pragmatic Institute
JANUARY 2017 - SEPTEMBER 2018
Advisory Council Member, Rutgers University Design Program
Rutgers University
JUNE 2015 - PRESENT
Design Thinking Professional
Macromedia University
OCTOBER 2010 - PRESENT
Semiotics of Sequential Art
School of Visual Arts
MARCH 2005 - PRESENT
Master's Certificate in IT Project Management
George Washington University
Skills
Tools
Adobe Creative Suite, MURAL, Miro, Claude, Jira, Aha!, Figma Slides, DaVinci Resolve
Platforms
Figma, SharePoint, Userlytics
Languages
SQL
Other
Service Blueprints, Visual Storytelling, Employee Experience, JTBD Interviews, User Experience Strategy, User Experience (UX), Design Strategy, Illustration, Product Design, UX Prototyping, UX Design, UI Design, User Interface (UI), Wireframing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Claude Code, Design Systems, Workshop Facilitation, Stakeholder Management, Qualitative User Research, Quantitative User Research, Graphic Design, Storyboarding, Digital Storyboards, IT Project Management, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Prototyping, Business to Business (B2B), AI-powered Product Design, Branding, Web App UX, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Design Leadership, Interactive Prototypes, Machine Learning, Azure DevOps, Google AI Studio, Biology, Design Thinking Facilitation, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Customer Analysis, Affinity Mapping, Consulting, Organizational Design, App UX, Web UX, Usability Analysis, In-depth Interviews, Customer Success, Feature Prioritization, Employee Engagement, Stakeholder Alignment, Stakeholder Interviews, Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS), Web Portals, Product Management, Claude Design, Advisory
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