About me

I use the design process to improve the product and the culture that creates it.

I'm Jeff Kinnelly, a product design leader based in Metro Detroit. For over 20 years I've helped companies — from Ford, Google Ventures, HSBC and SiriusXM — turn ambiguous problems into products that move the business forward.

I'm Jeff Kinnelly, a product design leader based in Metro Detroit. For over 20 years I've helped companies — from Ford, Google Ventures, HSBC and SiriusXM — turn ambiguous problems into products that move the business forward.

I'm Jeff Kinnelly, a product design leader based in Metro Detroit. For over 20 years I've helped companies — from Ford, Google Ventures, HSBC and SiriusXM — turn ambiguous problems into products that move the business forward.

My Story

I'm a builder — over the years I've learned how to build teams and systems that drive great products.

I spent the first half of my career in the craft as a product designer, and the second half building the conditions for great design: the teams, the practices, and the systems people design with. I've scaled a product practice from one consultant to eleven, built career frameworks adopted across 30+ practitioners, and built three design systems from scratch — for Ford Pro, Ford MS&S, and SiriusXM.

At SiriusXM, that last system has a new kind of user. I evolved it into a generative system — tokens, patterns, and guardrails that AI agents assemble on-brand experiences from — and I design the conversational experiences those agents deliver through ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. A design system used to keep every designer and engineer consistent. Now it keeps every agent consistent too.

I lead design across four delivery teams and run experimentation programs generating $2M+ in recurring revenue each. And I stay hands-on, prototyping daily with Claude Code — because a design leader who stops designing eventually stops leading anything real.

I'm a builder — over the years I've learned how to build teams and systems that drive great products.

I spent the first half of my career in the craft as a product designer, and the second half building the conditions for great design: the teams, the practices, and the systems people design with. I've scaled a product practice from one consultant to eleven, built career frameworks adopted across 30+ practitioners, and built three design systems from scratch — for Ford Pro, Ford MS&S, and SiriusXM.

At SiriusXM, that last system has a new kind of user. I evolved it into a generative system — tokens, patterns, and guardrails that AI agents assemble on-brand experiences from — and I design the conversational experiences those agents deliver through ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. A design system used to keep every designer and engineer consistent. Now it keeps every agent consistent too.

I lead design across four delivery teams and run experimentation programs generating $2M+ in recurring revenue each. And I stay hands-on, prototyping daily with Claude Code — because a design leader who stops designing eventually stops leading anything real.

I'm a builder — over the years I've learned how to build teams and systems that drive great products.

I spent the first half of my career in the craft as a product designer, and the second half building the conditions for great design: the teams, the practices, and the systems people design with. I've scaled a product practice from one consultant to eleven, built career frameworks adopted across 30+ practitioners, and built three design systems from scratch — for Ford Pro, Ford MS&S, and SiriusXM.

At SiriusXM, that last system has a new kind of user. I evolved it into a generative system — tokens, patterns, and guardrails that AI agents assemble on-brand experiences from — and I design the conversational experiences those agents deliver through ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. A design system used to keep every designer and engineer consistent. Now it keeps every agent consistent too.

I lead design across four delivery teams and run experimentation programs generating $2M+ in recurring revenue each. And I stay hands-on, prototyping daily with Claude Code — because a design leader who stops designing eventually stops leading anything real.

How I Lead

Four behaviours shape how I lead.
Whether I'm supporting one team or ten.

Four behaviours shape how I lead.
Whether I'm supporting one team or ten.

Four behaviours shape how I lead.
Whether I'm supporting one team or ten.

Player-coach, always.

I lead the strategy and I do the work. My teams see me in the file, in the research session, in the sprint — not just in the review.

Autonomy, backed by trust.

The best designers I've worked with didn't need direction; they needed clarity, context, and someone to clear the path. I set the destination and defend the space for people to find their way there.

Outcomes over output.

Beautiful work that doesn't move a metric is a portfolio piece, not a product. I connect design decisions to business results — and I make sure my teams get credit when the numbers move.

Grow every person, every year.

I've been a people and hiring manager since 2017. Every designer I lead has a growth plan, and my proudest wins are the promotions on my teams, not the launches.

Beyond the Work

Where I'm pushing the craft next, and what I do outside the day job.

Where I'm pushing the craft next, and what I do outside the day job.

Where I'm pushing the craft next, and what I do outside the day job.

AI-Native Design

I built LLM-powered research synthesis tooling in 2023, before most design orgs had touched it. Today I lead AI tooling for UX and product design at SiriusXM — overhauling workflows with agentic tools, vibe-coding functional prototypes for web and native mobile, and using AI to compress the distance between an idea and something you can put in front of a user. I'm not interested in AI as a novelty; I'm interested in what it does to the craft: faster discovery, cheaper experiments, and designers who spend their time on judgment instead of production.

Community

I'm a founding member and speaker at the Detroit chapter of the AI Collective. I support events and talks including bringing in speakers from the leading AI companies (Anthropic, Windsurf)

My Work

See how I've turned ambiguous problems into shipped products.

See how I've turned ambiguous problems into shipped products.

See how I've turned ambiguous problems into shipped products.

My Work