Ryan Leffel is a user experience and product leader with expertise crafting user-centric design strategies, building teams, and evolving design processes. He works to drive product and business growth through digital transformation, innovation, and elevating the user experience, while helping brands to maximize customer success.
His inherent passion for finding elegant solutions to complex organizational and design challenges led Ryan to earn a Master’s degree in Interactive Design from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. After earning his degree at NYU, Ryan took on lead user experience roles at companies including R/GA, Yahoo!, Corra, Pearson and Priceline. Ryan has been a featured speaker in both the US and abroad on topics including design, ecommerce and multi-channel strategy, personalization, and managing teams through change.
Ryan is currently the Head of Design at Priceline where he oversees design and research for web, marketing, mWeb and app. With extensive experience in UX, design leadership, user research, digital and multi-channel strategy, he excels at ensuring business objectives and user needs are being met with ease.
Upcoming Talks
13 May 2026
AI agents are already writing code, generating designs and even testing interfaces. But as synthetic users and AI developers enter the loop, who are we really designing for? Does human-centered design still matter when your users are increasingly non human, or do we need a new discipline that is explicitly agent-centered?
Join Ryan Leffel as he moderates this fiery debate between Dana Lawson and Christina Goldschmidt. They will challenge the new orthodoxy of AI-driven design, blending philosophical depth with practical insight from these leaders shaping how products are built, shipped and experienced in the age of synthetic users.
Challenges
● Balancing human-centered design with AI-driven efficiency
● Avoiding “synthetic bias” when testing or designing with AI personas and agents
● Redefining collaboration between design and engineering as AI builds and evaluates for us
● Deciding when to optimise for human understanding vs agent interpretation
Key Learnings
● What “synthetic users” really mean for UX, DX and product strategy
● How to design ethically and intelligently when the feedback loop includes AI agents
● Why the human perspective remains irreplaceable in experience design, even in an agent-centric world
● How to treat agents as a new class of stakeholder without losing sight of the humans they ultimately serve
Past Talks
A strong on-screen presence isn’t optional anymore. It is essential for influence, leadership, and collaboration in today’s world of work. Lorraine Lee, a top-rated virtual speaker, Amazon #1 best-selling author of Unforgettable Presence, and LinkedIn Learning instructor, joins Ryan Leffel for a fireside chat on how to elevate your presence in every interaction. Together, they will share practical strategies to help you communicate with confidence, command attention, and leave a lasting impact, whether you are pitching ideas, leading teams, or driving change.
19 May 2025
A/B testing has become a superpower in product development, enabling data-driven decisions that fuel business growth. But with great power comes a shadow: an over-reliance on testing can lead to incremental tweaks over bold, groundbreaking moves. This talk sheds light on both the superpowers and the shadows of A/B testing, exploring the risks of a test-heavy culture and how it can stifle creativity and big-picture thinking. Discover practical strategies to balance optimization with innovation, fostering a culture that leverages testing without losing sight of visionary product development.
- Harnessing the super powers of A/B testing to make revenue generating business decisions
- Recognizing the limitations of A/B testing and the risks of focusing solely on incremental improvements
- Identifying the “shadow side” of a testing culture on stifling creativity and broader strategic thinking
- How to balance rigorous testing processes without sacrificing creative exploration for breakthrough developments
- Practical steps to push beyond data dependency, fostering a mindset of experimentation that leads to transformative product outcomes.
14 May 2025
Hiring today is broken—candidates are getting filtered out by AI before a human even sees their application, and hiring managers are often relying on outdated methods that don’t assess the full potential of a candidate. This discussion will tackle hiring challenges from both sides of the table:
- How candidates can stand out despite AI screening and generic recruitment pipelines.
- Why skills, mindset, and cultural fit matter more than portfolios or take-home assignments—and how hiring managers can assess them effectively.
- How hiring managers can better brief recruiters to identify the right talent, even if they aren’t design or product experts.
- How teams are using AI and hiring tech effectively without missing top candidates or introducing bias.
- Real-world hiring strategies to improve hiring outcomes for both job seekers and hiring managers.
