01
Design leadership · Microsoft · 2025 — 2026
Driving Cultural Change Through an Agentic Design Framework
Fragmented experiments → shared AI practice
Alipta Ballav · Design + AI · Ex-Microsoft
I turn complex enterprise and AI systems into products people adopt.
Design leader and hands-on builder with 25+ years of experience. I bridge strategy, team leadership and production-ready code for enterprise AI platforms.
Portfolio
25+ years across design, technology and business strategy. Ex-Microsoft, Bangalore.
2 → 21
Design practice built
L1 → L3
UX maturity in four years
8–10 → 2
Integration delivery · days
Delivery efficiency—not call handling time.
20+
Retailer implementations
CV / Résumé
Alipta Ballav’s CV
Design leadership, career experience and credentials.
PDF · Updated September 2026
Selected player-coach work.
Both altitudes: hands-on systems built in code, and teams and practices built to scale.
02
Design leadership · Microsoft · 2025 — 2026
Transforming Quality Management with AI
Passive review → active guidance
03
Hands-on & AI prototyping (IC) · Microsoft · 2022 — 2026
Conversation Orchestration — UX Case Study
8–10 days → 2 days integration
04
Design leadership · Microsoft · 2022 — 2024
Microsoft Cloud for Retail — Store Operations
20+ retailer implementations
05
Design leadership · Cerner · 2017 — 2022
Building a Design Practice from 2 to 21
2 → 21 designers · L1 → L3 maturity
06
Hands-on & AI prototyping (IC) · Independent prototype · 2026
Contact Center Control Studio
PRD → working, interactive prototype
07
Design leadership · Cerner · 2017 — 2022
Dosage Calculator — Pharmacy Medication Manager
Usability score 6.3 → 8.9
How I lead
How I move teams forward
My leadership philosophy
Lead from the back
Build trust, coach judgment, and give people ownership.
Lead from the front
In unfamiliar territory, explore hands-on and make uncertainty tangible—then step back.
01
Make uncertainty testable
Prototype the riskiest assumption before committing the team to a direction.
02
Give teams ownership
Set clear expectations, coach individual judgment and share decisions—not just tasks.
03
Resolve trade-offs together
Bring product and engineering into design decisions early, with constraints and success measures made explicit.
Leadership in practice: 01 · AI culture change and 05 · Building a design practice.
Independent Lab
Experiments in Human–AI Interaction.
Two working prototypes exploring more deliberate and adaptive intelligence.
Working prototype · 01
SLOW AIPause is a feature.
AI that reveals uncertainty, invites reflection and preserves human judgment.
Working prototype · 02
Generative UIThe interface follows intent.
Interfaces assembled around changing tasks—within accessibility, system and trust guardrails.
Professional journey
Professional journey
- 01
2022 — 2026
Microsoft Corporation
Senior Design Manager
Led a six-person design team across Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Customer Service and Retail Industry Cloud, advancing AI-powered enterprise workflows.
- 02
2017 — 2022
Cerner Corporation
Senior Manager, User Experience
Owned hiring, clinical-design capability and the transfer of U.S. healthcare projects into the Bangalore UX practice.
- 03
2015 — 2017
Harman
Senior UX Designer
Worked across research and interaction design for Ellucian, Finacle, Toyota and Harman’s Audio Architect platform.
- 04
2007 — 2015
Wipro Technologies
Principal Consultant, UX
Led digital experience transformations across banking, healthcare and telecom for global enterprise clients.
- 05
1998 — 2007
Startups + Logica CMG
Design and technology roles
Built an early career foundation across visual design, frontend development and digital product delivery.
Education
- Certification Program in UX — IIT Mumbai
- Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management — IISW&BM, Kolkata
- Bachelor of Design — Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
- Bachelor of Commerce — Calcutta University, Kolkata
Influence
Ideas shared beyond the organization.
Speaking, writing, research, publishing and community work—brought together as one body of practice.
Speaking
Design, leadership and AI on stage.
Selected sessions from UX India, Future of Fest, IxDF and design communities.
Watch the talks →Writing
Design the intelligence, not the interface to the intelligence.Dec 2025The Developer’s IntentSep 2025The Resume Doesn’t Say It AllJul 2025
Read on Medium →Research
Crowd researcher · Stanford HCI Group
Contributed to crowdsourcing research with Stanford University’s HCI Group.
Crowd guilds: Worker-led reputation and feedback on crowdsourcing platforms
Nine publications · HCI, crowdsourcing and emerging interaction models.
Google Scholar →Book
A Designer's Encounter
Perspectives on design, published in my book.
Community · Co-founder
DesignShots.ai
Democratizing UX education through community.
Conference · Founder
The Messy UX Conference
Real stories behind the polished outcomes of design work.
Mentorship
Design & AI mentorship
Practical guidance for designers navigating AI and leadership.
Why hire me
A player-coach who works at both altitudes.
Hire me as a Staff/Principal designer to architect zero-to-one AI products from interface to working code, or as a design leader to build, mature and mentor a high-velocity team. 13 years in frontend development mean no handoff gap either way.
Contact
Building something complex? Let’s move it forward.
Open to UX Director and design leadership conversations, AI transformation, speaking engagements and mentoring.