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I am a Design Director and Senior UX Lead with 12+ years of experience helping early-stage startups, B2B, enterprise, and SaaS organizations. I design and launch user-centric digital solutions for complex business needs, and I excel at creating intuitive product experiences across AI/ML, aerospace, IT security, and news/editorial domains. I've delivered hundreds of features across dozens of products and bridged the gap between design and engineering to build cohesive, streamlined processes. I’ve led cross-functional teams from discovery to launch, shipped MVPs, and built scalable design systems that reduce time-to-market and improve user outcomes.…I am a Design Director and Senior UX Lead with 12+ years of experience helping early-stage startups, B2B, enterprise, and SaaS organizations. I design and launch user-centric digital solutions for complex business needs, and I excel at creating intuitive product experiences across AI/ML, aerospace, IT security, and news/editorial domains. I've delivered hundreds of features across dozens of products and bridged the gap between design and engineering to build cohesive, streamlined processes. I’ve led cross-functional teams from discovery to launch, shipped MVPs, and built scalable design systems that reduce time-to-market and improve user outcomes.

Masa Akiyama

Designer, UX Designer, Product Designer, +2

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I am a Design Director and Senior UX Lead with 12+ years of experience helping early-stage startups, B2B, enterprise, and SaaS organizations. I design and launch user-centric digital solutions for complex business needs, and I excel at creating intuitive product experiences across AI/ML, aerospace, IT security, and news/editorial domains. I've delivered hundreds of features across dozens of products and bridged the gap between design and engineering to build cohesive, streamlined processes. I’ve led cross-functional teams from discovery to launch, shipped MVPs, and built scalable design systems that reduce time-to-market and improve user outcomes.…I am a Design Director and Senior UX Lead with 12+ years of experience helping early-stage startups, B2B, enterprise, and SaaS organizations. I design and launch user-centric digital solutions for complex business needs, and I excel at creating intuitive product experiences across AI/ML, aerospace, IT security, and news/editorial domains. I've delivered hundreds of features across dozens of products and bridged the gap between design and engineering to build cohesive, streamlined processes. I’ve led cross-functional teams from discovery to launch, shipped MVPs, and built scalable design systems that reduce time-to-market and improve user outcomes.

Available to hire

I am a Design Director and Senior UX Lead with 12+ years of experience helping early-stage startups, B2B, enterprise, and SaaS organizations. I design and launch user-centric digital solutions for complex business needs, and I excel at creating intuitive product experiences across AI/ML, aerospace, IT security, and news/editorial domains.

I’ve delivered hundreds of features across dozens of products and bridged the gap between design and engineering to build cohesive, streamlined processes. I’ve led cross-functional teams from discovery to launch, shipped MVPs, and built scalable design systems that reduce time-to-market and improve user outcomes.

Skills

Experience Level

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Language

English

Fluent

Work Experience

Director of Design at State Affairs

June 1, 2025 - June 1, 2025

Non-partisan, AI-powered policy intelligence platform; Joined as part of the founding product team and first UX designer. Led mobile app redesign, improving login/onboarding and navigation; launch boosted onboarding, retention, and subscriptions (3,500 downloads; 5-star App Store rating). Proposed infinite-scroll on news articles, contributing to WAU growth; helped accelerate user engagement and growth relative to competitors.

Principal UX-Product Designer at Prosimo

June 1, 2023 - June 1, 2023

First UX designer at Prosimo; created end-to-end product vision from zero to launch (research, IA, wireframes, design system, branding, prototype). Shipped MVP in 5 months, achieving $5M ARR in year one and serving 100+ Global 2000 enterprise customers. Expanded use cases (MCN and Zero Trust) and redesigned a cloud-networking interface for admins, increasing user adoption by 45% and reducing network configuration errors by 35%.

Senior UX-Product Designer at Mist Systems

March 1, 2019 - March 1, 2019

Led UX for Mist’s AI-driven platform for enterprise Wi-Fi and location services, integrating Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, and IoT sensors with a micro-services architecture for real-time visibility and proactive automation. Created the AI assistant 'Marvis' using NLP and analytics to simplify troubleshooting. Instituted a style guide to unify components, reducing development time by 30–50% and enabling 2–3x faster feature delivery; improved onboarding and overall UX.

Senior UX-Product Designer at GE Aerospace

September 1, 2017 - September 1, 2017

Led UX for the Falcon 10X fly-by-wire flight deck control system; designed wireframes and, after leadership approval, implemented a polished visual design workflow. Collaborated with engineering to produce a fully functional prototype for testing. Outcomes included a 15% reduction in pilot workload, 20% per-flight-hour maintenance cost reduction, and improved sales conversion against legacy models.