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I’m Darren Trautwein, a UX and product design leader with 25+ years of experience helping organizations frame the right customer problems and decide what to build before major resources are committed. I lead experience strategy and product design across AI-powered, mobile, web, connected-device, and enterprise environments—especially in healthcare, life sciences, financial services, and retail—translating complex research and data into clear workflows, scalable experience systems, and measurable outcomes. I partner closely with executives, product and engineering teams, AI/ML leaders, and researchers to align customer value, business value, feasibility, and risk. I combine human-centered research, customer journey mapping, and hypothesis-driven validation with rapid prototyping and purposeful AI integration—focusing on trust, transparency, accessibility, privacy, and the right level of human oversight—so experiences become more intelligent, personalized, and efficient while remaining dependable in complex settings.…I’m Darren Trautwein, a UX and product design leader with 25+ years of experience helping organizations frame the right customer problems and decide what to build before major resources are committed. I lead experience strategy and product design across AI-powered, mobile, web, connected-device, and enterprise environments—especially in healthcare, life sciences, financial services, and retail—translating complex research and data into clear workflows, scalable experience systems, and measurable outcomes. I partner closely with executives, product and engineering teams, AI/ML leaders, and researchers to align customer value, business value, feasibility, and risk. I combine human-centered research, customer journey mapping, and hypothesis-driven validation with rapid prototyping and purposeful AI integration—focusing on trust, transparency, accessibility, privacy, and the right level of human oversight—so experiences become more intelligent, personalized, and efficient while remaining dependable in complex settings.

Darren Trautwein

UX Designer, Product Designer, AI Strategy Consultant, +2

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I’m Darren Trautwein, a UX and product design leader with 25+ years of experience helping organizations frame the right customer problems and decide what to build before major resources are committed. I lead experience strategy and product design across AI-powered, mobile, web, connected-device, and enterprise environments—especially in healthcare, life sciences, financial services, and retail—translating complex research and data into clear workflows, scalable experience systems, and measurable outcomes. I partner closely with executives, product and engineering teams, AI/ML leaders, and researchers to align customer value, business value, feasibility, and risk. I combine human-centered research, customer journey mapping, and hypothesis-driven validation with rapid prototyping and purposeful AI integration—focusing on trust, transparency, accessibility, privacy, and the right level of human oversight—so experiences become more intelligent, personalized, and efficient while remaining dependable in complex settings.…I’m Darren Trautwein, a UX and product design leader with 25+ years of experience helping organizations frame the right customer problems and decide what to build before major resources are committed. I lead experience strategy and product design across AI-powered, mobile, web, connected-device, and enterprise environments—especially in healthcare, life sciences, financial services, and retail—translating complex research and data into clear workflows, scalable experience systems, and measurable outcomes. I partner closely with executives, product and engineering teams, AI/ML leaders, and researchers to align customer value, business value, feasibility, and risk. I combine human-centered research, customer journey mapping, and hypothesis-driven validation with rapid prototyping and purposeful AI integration—focusing on trust, transparency, accessibility, privacy, and the right level of human oversight—so experiences become more intelligent, personalized, and efficient while remaining dependable in complex settings.

Available to hire

I’m Darren Trautwein, a UX and product design leader with 25+ years of experience helping organizations frame the right customer problems and decide what to build before major resources are committed. I lead experience strategy and product design across AI-powered, mobile, web, connected-device, and enterprise environments—especially in healthcare, life sciences, financial services, and retail—translating complex research and data into clear workflows, scalable experience systems, and measurable outcomes.

I partner closely with executives, product and engineering teams, AI/ML leaders, and researchers to align customer value, business value, feasibility, and risk. I combine human-centered research, customer journey mapping, and hypothesis-driven validation with rapid prototyping and purposeful AI integration—focusing on trust, transparency, accessibility, privacy, and the right level of human oversight—so experiences become more intelligent, personalized, and efficient while remaining dependable in complex settings.

Skills

Experience Level

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Beginner

Work Experience

CX/UX Lead, AI Innovation at Wolters Kluwer DXG

November 1, 2025 - September 30, 2026

Led a six-person multidisciplinary team to define CX/UX strategy and design for AI-powered tax and accounting products. Defined and prototyped AI-assisted tax research and guidance experiences that help professionals formulate questions, evaluate sourced answers, understand uncertainty, and maintain appropriate human oversight. Partnered with product, engineering, AI/ML, research, and business leaders to identify customer problems, shape roadmap priorities, and move concepts from hypothesis to validated product experiences through customer research, journey mapping, Jobs-to-be-Done, rapid prototyping, and usability testing. Established responsible-AI experience patterns covering trust, transparency, explainability, accessibility, privacy, uncertainty, and human oversight; mentored designers and presented evidence-based recommendations to senior leadership.

Global Lead, UX & Digital Product Strategy at Merck

March 1, 2017 - November 1, 2025

Built Merck’s first U.S. digital UX practice and scaled it into a global capability supporting digital products and platforms across 140+ markets. Served as one of seven vertical leads within a 50+ person organization, leading experience strategy and product design across AI-enabled solutions, connected health, learning platforms, data-intensive tools, and complex enterprise systems. Managed end-to-end product work from discovery and problem framing through validation, implementation support, measurement, and optimization. Partnered with business and technology leaders to prioritize opportunities using customer value, company value, strategic fit, feasibility, and risk, and translated complex scientific, behavioral, healthcare, and operational data into understandable workflows for consumers, patients, scientists, technical professionals, and enterprise teams. Led experience strategy for Promotional Quality Assurance (PQA) using AI to evaluate marketing materials against brand standa

Independent Consultant | Product Design, Consumer Experience & Design Strategy

September 1, 2013 - March 1, 2017

Delivered product and experience design for connected health, human performance, wearables, fitness, retail, consumer services, and enterprise platforms. Provided UX strategy and product design for Rev-Up, an enterprise healthcare revenue-cycle and AI-powered medical billing platform, including AI-assisted billing and claim-review experiences, role-based dashboards, work queues, alerts, reporting, and drill-down analytics while maintaining human oversight. Led UX strategy for 7-Eleven’s omnichannel digital transformation across POS, mobile/rewards, kiosks, payments, and fuel-pump experiences—connecting customer and business value through simpler transactions, personalization, self-service, and secure cross-channel authentication. Designed connected-health experiences for Biocanic by simplifying data interpretation and workflows across lab, wearable, and health data. Led product experience for RxNetwork’s medication adherence ecosystem across patients, caregivers, pharmacies, prov

Enterprise Data & Decision Experience at PepsiCo

January 1, 2013 - January 1, 2017

Defined a scalable enterprise data experience that transformed fragmented information into role-specific insights for executives, product managers, and field teams. Improved decision-making and adoption by translating complex datasets into accessible, story-driven visualizations, and reduced implementation/adoption risk through feasibility evaluation, early validation, and incremental testing with key user groups.

Vice President, Digital Product Experience at Inventiv Health

March 1, 2009 - September 1, 2013

Led a 14-person multidisciplinary team of UI/UX designers, UX copywriters, and front-end developers to create digital products and customer experiences for global healthcare and pharmaceutical brands. Defined product and experience strategy across patient education, adherence, treatment support, wellness, and professional healthcare experiences. Translated complex healthcare information into approachable workflows and content to help users understand options and take action. Led UX and digital innovation for MerckEngage, a multichannel consumer-health ecosystem serving millions of patients, caregivers, and HCPs using journey design, personalization, and behavioral engagement to improve activation, treatment adherence, and ongoing engagement; recognized with MM&M awards for Best Online Patient Relationship/Support Program and Best Interactive Initiative for Consumers.

Director, User Experience at PHH Mortgage

April 1, 2007 - March 1, 2009

Director, Customer Experience at Ferrara & Company / PureRed

February 1, 2004 - April 1, 2007

Partner, Director of Marketing Design & Customer Experience at Candescent

May 1, 2002 - February 29, 2004

Partner, Director of Marketing Design & Customer Experience at Candent

May 1, 2002 - February 1, 2004

Senior UX Designer at Primedia

May 1, 2001 - May 1, 2002

Senior UX Designer at Factiva / Dow Jones

September 1, 1997 - May 1, 2001