User Experience Strategy

Designing for how people actually think.

I'm a Lead UX Strategist at Vanguard, one of the world’s largest asset managers, building the user experiences for Vanguard’s new cash saving and spending offerings. I've led design for a financial product that grew from zero to scale — from concept to serving hundreds of thousands of clients.

I believe that effective strategy is really about becoming a fast, careful student of someone else's world: understanding the people, sensing where things are heading, and knowing which ideas will survive contact with reality.

Experience

01

Design Leadership

Currently leading a design team at Vanguard, defining user experiences to bring the "Vanguard effect" to the cash space. I've been part of building something from nothing — taking a new financial product from launch to meaningful scale in a competitive market.

02

Consulting

Ten years of design consulting: helping organizations, from public sector and non-profits to industry leaders like GE, Microsoft, and Nationwide, venture into genuinely new territory.

03

Teaching

Taught interaction design to graduate and undergraduate students at a Carnegie Mellon University's Human Computer Interaction Institute in the context of studio design courses; lectured on the history and fundamentals of the discipline; and helped students prepare for careers in user-centered research, UX design, and product management.

04

Clients & Sectors

I've learned how to learn fast. Worked in domains including urban planning and community development, cybersecurity, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and smart environments.

About

Description

I believe the best solutions come from understanding people first — and I've spent my career helping teams hold onto that conviction while they build.

In my decade as a design consultant before joining Vanguard, I helped organizations do things they'd never done before. What made it possible, across very different industries and business problems, was the same combination: curiosity, pattern recognition, and a firm grip on reality.

Healthcare Cybersecurity Community Development Real Estate Financial Services Manufacturing Non-profit Government

I trained as an architect, which means I like to understand how systems work and fit together — and I'm a former English major, which means I like to figure out how to tell stories clearly and compellingly.

Education

Master of Architecture with distinction
Taubman College, University of Michigan

2009 George G. Booth Traveling Fellow in Architecture

A.B., English Literature, with honors
The University of Chicago

Archeologia, lingue e lettere straniere
Università di Bologna

More about me

Michigander, mother of two.


Favorite quote

"Every thing looks permanent until its secret is known."
Emerson, Circles

Get in touch

Nice to
meet you!

Email hello@sarablumenstein.com
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/sblumenstein/
Location Philadelphia, PA