Refe Tuma
Crystal Lake,IL
Summary
Design and product leader with 14 years of experience in scaling enterprise B2B and B2C platforms across diverse industries including automotive, e-commerce, financial services, and hospitality. Expertise in building cross-functional teams and crafting product strategies that drive business objectives. Equally at home in both client-side and agency environments, presenting to clients or the board, and mentoring local or distributed teams. Proficient in leveraging AI-powered development tools to deliver features, enhancements, and end-to-end applications.
Overview
14
14
years of professional experience
Work History
Fractional Head of Design
refe.design
09.2025 - Current
- Provide fractional design leadership through management support, team leadership, project-based work, and exploration of new products and lines via research, design thinking, and rapid prototyping.
- Collaborate with founders, CMOs, and heads of product to identify and resolve friction points, address resourcing gaps, and establish team structure, hiring frameworks, and operational foundations.
- Align product vision with business goals, translating strategy into clear creative direction and measurable outcomes through repeatable processes and rituals.
- Lead strategy and design thinking workshops to generate product requirements and align stakeholders.
- Plan, define, prototype, and build functional releases for early-stage startups. Engagements include leading and/or performing one or all of the following activities: research, product strategy, product and UX design, and end-to-end AI-assisted development.
- Partnered with agencies and product companies to build and optimize creative teams, enhancing collaboration and delivering measurable impact.
Director, Experience Design
OPENLANE
07.2021 - 09.2025
- Championed customer experience at executive level, influencing product direction and securing board-level investment through clear vision and insights into user behavior, resulting in a move from fourth in the market for sales and customer service to number one.
- Owned the end-to-end design vision across entire product portfolio including marketplace, platform, inspector experience, mobile apps, and internal deal working tools serving tens of thousands of daily users, increasing bid-to-sale conversions by more than 30%.
- Led major product initiatives that shaped the future experience: Simplified Marketplace (unified multiple auction formats into one cohesive flow that increased bid activity by 4x during peak hours), OPENLANE Intelligence (AI-powered insights layer), and Seamless Financing (streamlined activation and conversion resulting in a 20% increase user conversion between financing and marketplace verticals).
- Defined OPENLANE's approach to customer-facing AI with OPENLANE Intelligence, strategically moving from isolated, ad-hoc AI features to a wholistic intelligence layer providing pricing and bid/counter support, and market insights that raised average sale price by 10% in under 3 months.
- Worked side-by-side with the Chief Product Officer, with shared accountability for the entire product portfolio.
- Directly responsible for scaling the product design function at acquisition and helped transform the product organization from startup to enterprise.
- Trained and mentored designers and product managers, enhancing their skills and contributing to overall team effectiveness.
- Built and scaled the design system organization-wide, creating reusable components, clear patterns, and quality standards that enabled consistency across squads and product surfaces.
- Shaped design practices across discovery, concept development, interaction design, prototyping, and delivery, encouraging exploration while staying grounded in user needs and market realities.
Manager, Experience Design
DEG Merkle
10.2017 - 07.2021
- Established and scaled the first UX function at an Award-winning digital agency specializing in e-commerce, CRM and CMS implementations, and custom development of enterprise platforms.
- Launched UX research, testing, and experience design services that generated $1M+ revenue in year one, demonstrating design's strategic value and influence on business outcomes.
- Drove dozens of new and repeat client engagements as a member of the core pre-sales team, representing tens of millions of dollars of business.
- Designed marketplace flows, enterprise dashboards, and B2B/B2C products that clarified ambiguous spaces and transformed loose ideas into effective product concepts.
- Facilitated discovery and concept development workshops with executive stakeholders, guiding teams to challenge assumptions and align solutions with user needs.
- Coached and supported designers across multiple engagements, enhancing their craft and enabling delivery of high-quality work in fast-paced environments.
User Experience Design Lead
DST Systems
05.2012 - 10.2017
- Owned UX vision for a $100M division, leading design across web and mobile platforms including consumer portals, advisor dashboards, processor experiences, and internal tools.
- Conducted 100+ user interviews and usability studies; redesigned core onboarding and activation flows that drove adoption, reduced support volume, and increased satisfaction.
- Introduced user-centered design practices across discovery, interaction design, and prototyping, enhancing product development processes.
- Partnered cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and stakeholders to ensure design decisions reflected real customer needs across every surface.
- Served as official liaison with FINRA for nearly two years, facilitating compliance and collaboration during development of direct-to-consumer (D2C) investment platform.
- Fintech company specializing in mutual funds processing. Later acquired by SS&C.
Education
Design Leadership at Scale: Executive -
Maven
01-2025
UX Strategy Masterclass -
UXStrat
01-2019
Visual Thinking Workshop -
XPlane
01-2017
Pragmatic Marketing Foundations -
PMG
01-2015
UX Bootcamp -
Cooper U
01-2014
A.A. - Multimedia Arts
College of DuPage
Glen Ellyn, IL01-2004
Skills
- End-to-end product design
- Marketplace product strategy
- Mobile user experience
- Digital commerce design
- User growth strategies
- User journey optimization
- User research methodologies
- Product discovery strategies
- Design thinking methodologies
- Interaction design
- Prototyping with Figma
- Accessibility standards compliance
- Design systems
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Vision and strategy development
- Team leadership and scaling
- Coaching and career mentorship
- Product storytelling
References
Available upon request
Timeline
Fractional Head of Design
refe.design
09.2025 - Current
Director, Experience Design
OPENLANE
07.2021 - 09.2025
Manager, Experience Design
DEG Merkle
10.2017 - 07.2021
User Experience Design Lead
DST Systems
05.2012 - 10.2017
Design Leadership at Scale: Executive -
Maven
UX Strategy Masterclass -
UXStrat
Visual Thinking Workshop -
XPlane
Pragmatic Marketing Foundations -
PMG
UX Bootcamp -
Cooper U
A.A. - Multimedia Arts
College of DuPage