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
UXDX Community: Design to Dev: The Future of Handoffs 2025
4 December 2025
Arrival and a warm welcome from our UXDX Ambassador around goals for the New York Community.
UXDX Community: Design to Dev: The Future of Handoffs 2025
4 December 2025
Design cycles are speeding up while the expectations on product teams keep stretching wider. Designers and developers sit closer than ever, yet the seams between their workflows still snag. AI adds fresh superpowers, but also fresh confusion about who does what, and when.
Participants will walk away with a clearer picture of how roles are shifting, how both engineers and designers are incorporating AI into their workflows, and how they can adapt their collaboration and processes to make integrating AI easier. They’ll learn practical ways to align earlier, embrace fluid collaboration models, uncertainty, and use AI as a bridge rather than a wedge.
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.
