Marina Krutchinsky — Co-Founder
For a long time, I thought decisions stalled because the work wasn’t clear enough. So I kept tightening things. More rationale. Cleaner flows. Better research framing. It helped. Until it didn’t. At some point - usually when money, timelines, or visibility entered the picture - the same thing kept happening. The meeting would go well. People would agree. But nothing would change! No pushback. No debate. Just quiet drift. — I've spent 25+ years in UX - sometimes leading teams, sometimes deep in the craft - at companies from startups to JPMorgan Chase (where I'm a VP now). And what finally clicked wasn't a "UX insight." It was watching what happened after the meeting. Not in reviews. In side conversations. That’s where the REAL QUESTIONS showed up. Who owns this if it goes wrong? Who has to explain it? What gets riskier if we move forward? Those questions rarely get asked out loud. But they decide everything. Once the stakes go up, decisions stop being about quality and start being about EXPOSURE. If no one is clearly holding the trade-offs, the system protects itself. It slows down. It fragments. It agrees without committing. This is how people end up with more responsibility and less authority. More meetings, fewer outcomes. More trust, less follow-through. Not because they’re doing "bad work". Because the work never gets attached to consequence. If this keeps happening long enough, it stops being situational. It becomes STRUCTURAL. That’s the part most people miss... ...until it’s already shaping their role. — I unpack patterns like this in my substack *UX Mentor Diaries*. Free to join -> https://uxmentor.substack.com ____________________________________________ ⚠️ My posts are my own and do not reflect the opinions of my current, past, or future employers.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a Fintech and Design Leadership expert with extensive experience in user-centered design.
Location: New York, New York, United States
Experience: 26 yrs 9 mos
Skills
- User Experience (ux)
- Design Leadership
- User Experience
- Product Design
- Strategy
- Ux Coaching
- User-centered Design
- Information Architecture
Career Highlights
- 25+ years of UX leadership experience
- Coached over 2,400 designers in their careers
- Expert in navigating unspoken rules of UX
Work Experience
UX Mentor Diaries
Founder & UX Career Strategist (3 yrs 4 mos)
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
VP, UX Design, U.S. Wealth Management (3 yrs 5 mos)
21.co
Head of Design, Global (10 mos)
Designlab
UX Academy Educator & Mentor (11 mos)
American Express
Sr./Lead UX Designer, Global Commercial Services (2 yrs 2 mos)
BORN Group
Senior UX Designer (1 yr 3 mos)
Webhues Solutions
Co-Founder, Head of Design & UX (8 yrs 11 mos)
Civic Ventures
Director of Web Services (1 yr)
Design Director (1 yr 1 mo)
Contegra Systems
Lead Interactive Designer/ Front-End Development Consultant (6 yrs 2 mos)
freelance
Interactive/Web Designer (4 yrs)
Education
MSc at Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University
Information Design at Edward Tufte's Workshop: Presenting Data & Information
User Experience (UX) at IxDF - The Interaction Design Foundation
Facilitator’s Guide to Human-Centered Design at IDEO.ORG
