Justin R. Freeman

Organization

• Embedded Discovery as an organizational capability through ethnographic research, workflow analysis, Design Sprints, and evidence-based product development, fundamentally changing how Product, Design, and Engineering identified customer problems and evaluated new opportunities.
• Authored Jayden's Journey, an enterprise product vision that aligned executive leadership around the Better Together strategy, creating a shared product vision and organizational North Star for future product planning.
• Helped establish Frontline's transition toward a product-enabled operating model by embedding discovery earlier in product planning and introducing repeatable methods for transforming customer insight into product strategy.
• Established the Backpack Design System, creating a scalable design foundation adopted by 200+ engineers that improved product consistency, strengthened Engineering collaboration, and accelerated product delivery across multiple product teams.
• Scaled UX coverage across 30+ active products spanning HCM, SPM, D&A, ERP, IDM, and Morpheus, growing the function's reach from a handful of marquee solutions to broad engagement across the portfolio.

Talent

• Grew and led a UX organization to 8 Product Designers and 1 Researcher, adding dedicated research capacity and design coverage to close critical gaps in HCM and beyond.
• Led and mentored a multidisciplinary team of Product Designers, building a culture centered on discovery, evidence-based product development, experimentation, and continuous learning.
• Championed Design Sprints, discovery practices, and customer-centered product development, helping shift the organization from solution-first thinking toward evidence-informed product decisions.

Product Strategy & Innovation

• Established Discovery as a strategic product capability through more than 150 customer engagements, leveraging ethnographic research, workflow analysis, interviews, and synthesis to uncover shared customer challenges and improve product investment decisions.
• Conceived the Frontline Intelligence Engine (FIE), an AI-powered product intelligence platform that democratized customer insight by centralizing research, customer feedback, support trends, and product intelligence into a shared decision-making resource. The concepts behind FIE later evolved through the adoption of Dovetail, Lovable, and Figma.
• Led a five-day Google Design Sprint to reimagine the Individualized Education Program (IEP) experience through an AI-first lens. Beginning with targeted ethnographic research, the team identified data collection—not professional judgment—as the primary source of user friction, informing an agentic MTSS concept that aggregated SIS, RTI, and related student data while guiding educators through an AI-assisted workflow that generated the foundation of an IEP.
• Guided cross-functional teams through discovery, workflow mapping, How Might We ideation, Design Studio workshops, rapid prototyping, user testing, and research synthesis to define AI-first product concepts.
• Led the evaluation, implementation, and organizational adoption of Dovetail, Figma, and Lovable, establishing AI-enabled workflows that accelerated discovery, research synthesis, collaborative design, and rapid product prototyping while positioning the organization for future MCP-enabled product development.
• Partnered with executive leadership to reshape product planning by ensuring roadmap discussions began with evidence gathered through discovery rather than assumptions alone, strengthening organizational confidence before product investment.
• Led two end-to-end UX initiatives (SPM Plan Management, ERP Purchase Order Lifecycle) from ethnographic discovery through validated design, achieving user-tested ease-of-use ratings of 4.75/5 and 4.3/5, with as many as 9 of 9 tested users preferring the redesigned workflow.

Organization

• Established foundational product capabilities including Discovery, Research, Product Analytics, and an enterprise Design System, creating repeatable methods for customer-centered product development.
• Standardized product design practices by introducing repeatable workflows, design standards, and customer validation methods that strengthened collaboration across Product, Design, and Engineering.
• Expanded Design's influence across multiple product organizations by demonstrating measurable value through successful product initiatives, increasing organizational adoption of evidence-based product development.
• Partnered with executive leadership to mature product planning by ensuring customer insight informed product strategy and roadmap discussions earlier in the product lifecycle.

Talent

• Helped build Korn Ferry's internal Product Design organization, reducing reliance on external agencies while strengthening long-term organizational capability.
• Partnered in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring Product Designers to build Korn Ferry's enterprise design organization, helping transition the company from vendor-dependent design delivery to an internal, strategically aligned product design capability.
• Led and mentored Product Designers across multiple agile product teams, establishing expectations around discovery, customer validation, collaboration, and evidence-based product decision-making.
• Built trusted partnerships with Product Management and Engineering by leading teams through multiple successful product initiatives, establishing Design as a strategic partner within product delivery.

Product Strategy & Innovation

• Established Discovery as a foundational product capability, introducing customer research and workflow analysis to better understand customer needs before investing in product solutions.
• Led implementation of Pendo, providing product teams with behavioral analytics and customer insight that improved product planning, prioritization, and experience optimization.
• Led the strategy and development of Korn Ferry's enterprise Design System, creating reusable standards and shared components that improved consistency, scalability, and engineering efficiency.
• Conducted competitive analysis and market research to identify industry patterns, establish enterprise design standards, and inform long-term product strategy.
• Partnered with cross-functional teams to facilitate customer validation, prototype testing, and iterative product design, helping Product and Engineering reduce delivery risk through earlier customer feedback.
• Influenced Product and Engineering through multiple successful product initiatives, strengthening organizational confidence in discovery, customer validation, and evidence-based product development.
• Led design and validation of KF Careers, a future-state employee engagement concept built on Microsoft Teams; conducted research with 20 potential users to confirm the career-path model and inform employee-facing product strategy.