Kate Kimble

Kate Kimble

Hello! I’m Kate Kimble. I am a content-first designer who’s grown into product and people leadership. At the University of Phoenix, that meant serving as a player-coach, owning the UX for 6 major products inside a portal with 110,000 daily visits, and managing 5 direct reports.

Systems thinking and design thinking guide my work, because without strategy, we’d all be lost. And without people, what’s it all for? I’m currently looking for my next role as a design manager or lead.

Let’s chat!
Connect with me on LinkedIn, say hello in an old-school email, or seek photos of my travels (okay, mostly my cats) on Instagram.

Resume

Work history

University of Phoenix

Senior UX Manager, 2024 - 2026

As a working manager, I split my time between building alongside product and engineering partners, guiding a team of five direct reports, and shaping the way design functions within the overall organization.

  • Design leadership + collaboration
    Scaling UX beyond simple execution to user-centered strategies that balance business and customer needs. Cultivating product and engineering partnerships, ensuring the design team’s impact is known at the leadership level.
  • Team ethos + climate
    Continuously working to create a safe and collaborative environment, ensuring designers on my team have what they need to do their best work.
  • Design system
    Leading component- and pattern-building efforts, creating an ADA-compliant, reusable design system to improve consistency and efficiency across products.

Senior UX Designer, 2023 - 2024

As the design lead for the core authenticated experience product team, I improved site discovery and defined the vision and strategy for top visited pages.


  • Simplified product navigation by globally implementing singular header and footer components, decreasing the total number of components by 8 each. Users have shown a median task completion rate of 80% since implementation.

  • Developed a long-term approach for building a scalable homepage that breaks large amounts of personalized information into small, consumable parts.
  • Student Profile lift + shift
    Designed a scalable space for student account and profile information to gradually migrate from an old cumbersome platform.

Simple Focus

Senior UX Designer, 2021 - 2023

At Simple Focus, I was the lead designer for education-focused clients, including the Alliance for Early Success and the University of Phoenix—where I revamped the Faculty Portal, turning their existing manual process into a buildable scheduling framework that helps working instructors manage course timing and student needs.

I was also part of a team tasked with improving the American Home Shield contractor portal. Together, we interviewed real estate agents, contractors, and other staff to uncover automation opportunities and points of friction, then began making small iterative changes that ultimately increased daily product use by 23%.

Georgetown University

Senior Designer, 2017 - 2021

Designer, 2013 - 2017

As the solo designer at Georgetown University in Qatar, I owned the visual design and UX strategy for all internal and public-facing products—from sixty-page websites to sixty-foot banners, and everything in between. In the years I spent at Georgetown’s campus in the Middle East, my biggest wins include guiding a team of agency designers and engineers to develop a functional, user-friendly CMS, and building a robust reusable component library used to curate personalized admissions web and email experiences.

Imagination Publishing

Editorial Designer, 2010 - 2013

I worked on an editorial team at Imagination Publishing creating content for professional associations, including the National Federation of Independent Business and the American Bar Association, as well as B2B clients, including Chick-fil-A and Lowe’s. I planned and designed layouts for websites, magazines, and catalogues, and I directed freelance photographers and illustrators in the production of original photography and infographics.

Education

Michigan State University

Bachelor of Arts, Graphic Design, 2009