Designer, Leader, Educator

About

18+ Years of Product Design ExperienceBased in Marin County, CA

Hi, I'm Mike Aurelio

Human-Centered Design for an AI-Native World

Design Leader and Principal IC with 12+ years of hands-on design experience & 5+ years people leadership experience, bridging high-impact individual execution with team building, design ops, and enterprise strategy. Recognized for driving complex 0-to-1 platforms while coaching designers, scaling practices, and aligning C-suite stakeholders. Comfortable designing complex interaction systems with AI-enhanced workflows while directing design teams, setting product vision, and establishing design governance.

My journey at a glance

2019 - 2026SalesforcePrincipal Product Designer & Director of Product Design across Marketing Cloud, Agentforce, and cross-cloud AI experiences.
2018-2025Skyline CollegeLaunched the college’s first dedicated UX Certificate program as an Adjunct Educator.
2023-2024California College of the ArtsTaught two summer semesters in the graduate interaction design program.
2007-2019DesignMap SFVP of Design & UX Director. Award winning UX design consulting and execution for Cisco Systems, Charles Schwab, eBay, and more.
2005Sacramento StateBS in Graphic Design. Won the prestigious “Best Portfolio” award.

Core Competencies

Executive Influence & StorytellingArticulating complex experiences to founders, SVPs, and external partners to facilitate feedback, buy-in, and funding.
Product Vision & StrategyFacilitating vision and strategy that lead directly to product roadmaps from napkin concepts to fully realized digital products.
Cross-Org AlignmentFostering tight collaboration and visibility across multiple disciplines and teams.
Human-Agent Interaction (HAI)Designing elegant workflows that blend human decision-making with autonomous AI capability.
Generative AI SystemsDesigning UX/UI models for generative and agentic systems.
Design Systems & Systems ThinkingExperience creating, systematizing, and aligning to existing design systems across desktop web, mobile web, desktop app, and mobile app.
MentorshipCultivating high-performing design teams through coaching, feedback, and career growth planning.
Generative & Evaluative ResearchDesigning and conducting research that validates problems, tests solutions, and surfaces strategic opportunities.
Advanced PrototypingBuilding high fidelity prototypes in Figma, Figma Make, Cursor, Claude Design, and Claude Code for feature design, keynote demos, and product vision.
Enterprise ArchitectureDe-risking and structuring massive systems of record into intuitive, user-centered tools.
Practice BuildingEstablishing design processes, critique frameworks, and career structures that scale high-performing design teams.
Design Operations DevelopmentRefining and standardizing design processes, tool best practices, and design deliverables across design teams.

Professional Experience

SalesforceDec 2019 – Oct 2026
Principal Product Designer
11/2022 - 2026 & 12/2019 - 06/2021

Architect foundational 0-to-1 interaction patterns and UI systems for Einstein Copilot for Marketing (agentic campaign creation) and Adaptive Websites (agentic B2B2C personalization). Partner with Platform Design leadership and cross-functional teams to align and codify Human-Agent UI patterns across Marketing Cloud, laying strategic design foundation for Agentforce Marketing. Align vision through workshops and strategic communications.

Cross-Cloud Strategy Definition:
  • Spearheaded definition of cross-cloud Content Vision strategy, built on "Data + Content + Experience" framework. United four previously siloed clouds into single shared content model and shaped FY26's planning priorities that Engineering could scope release by release.
  • Enabled prioritization of content data model on Data Cloud to translate CMS/DAM data into semantic formats that AI agents could parse and personalize from.
Human-in-the-Loop AI Design System:
  • Accelerated campaign creation 75% (weeks to days) by designing LLM-powered assistive model adopted by 500+ users.
  • Established human-in-the-loop design system and interaction patterns that became foundational to Agentforce's AI experiences.
Real-Time Agentic Personalization:
  • Achieved 33% lift in recommendation-driven conversion, 40% increase in cross-category browsing, and saved 100 days/year in marketing ops by designing and building Adaptive Websites, enabling online experiences to tailor themselves to individual users in real time.
  • Partnered directly with major customers to understand their needs.
  • Designed Agentic Content Zone (ACZ) to dynamically render content within dedicated panel while AI conversational content stayed visible and navigable.
Patent: Agentic Content UI Patterns:

Secured patent, "Display Screen or Portion Thereof With Graphical User Interface," which models agentic multi-channel marketing content generation.

Director of Product Design05/2021 – 11/2022
05/2021 – 11/2022

Elevated craft and accelerated execution speed by building scalable frameworks for design critique, research partnerships, and cross-functional handoffs. Mentored four senior- to principal-level product designers on Einstein AI for Marketing team. Established practice standards, team design ops, and career progression guidance.

Autonomous Campaign Concept Validation:
  • Secured executive buy-in for Einstein Self-Optimizing Campaigns (ESOC), which envisioned AI-driven campaigns autonomously optimized toward individual marketers' stated business goals.
  • Directed design of interactive Figma prototype and executed exploratory study, validating concept after earning 'must-have' rating by marketers.
Design Practice Standardization & Team Development:
  • Transformed disorganized work environment, establishing processes and tools to improve visibility and facilitate collaboration where none existed previously.
  • Empowered designers to begin collaborating on their own, improved responsiveness to risks and enabled better planning for feature ownership, strategy, and future research needs.
  • Built shared spreadsheet to track progress against release timelines.
  • Held weekly stand-up to respond to roadblocks.
  • Enabled designers to receive feedback on pattern alignment and usability by establishing weekly critiques.
  • Implemented regular one-on-ones with designers, UX researcher, product management, and engineering leadership to glean individual needs and opportunities.
  • Helped secure promotion of Lead Designer to Principal Designer, thanks to direct coaching and advocacy.
DesignMap2007 – 2019
VP of UX Design01/2019 – 11/2019
01/2019 – 11/2019

Scaled internal design ops and built agency's product design practice into end-to-end UX/UI, expanding client accounts across B2B SaaS, IT, fintech, and healthcare.

Director of UX Design07/2014 – 12/2018
07/2014 – 12/2018

Directed multi-disciplinary teams (UX, visual, motion, research, front-end) while leading product strategy and design execution for high-stakes enterprise clients including Cisco Systems, Charles Schwab, eBay, and ExactTarget. Mentored junior-to-senior designers, managed executive client relationships, and established SOPs for research and studio design reviews. Spearheaded design strategy for award-winning client engagements.

Pilot-to-Acquisition Enterprise Platform:

Led design of CloudGenix's SD-WAN management platform (cloud-based system enabling network admins to create, monitor, and optimize enterprise-scale networks in plain business language), which scaled from pilot concept in 2017 into valuable enterprise-scale system, acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2020 for $420M.

Research-to-Vision Clinical AI Design (2023 UX Award Winner) :

Revolutionized multiple sclerosis (MS) care by designing AI-enhanced clinical application to give neurologists objective, longitudinal views of disease activity, biomarkers, and treatment responses. Transformed two years of Octave Health's scientific/market research into investor-ready vision, following 11-week design engagement.

Sales Development Rep UX Vision (2017 UX Award Winner):

Led UX Design Director role on cross-disciplinary team to redesign the SDR platform at InsideSales, designing a heads-up display interface that consolidated lead context and eliminated context-switching—the vision was demonstrated at the customer conference, validated market demand, and influenced product strategy. Won 2017 Bronze Prize at UX Awards for Most Engaging Sales Tool.

Interaction Designer07/2007 – 07/2014
07/2007 – 07/2014

Architected interaction models, vision storyboards, enterprise user flows, and prototypes for complex digital platforms across IT/Networking, e-commerce, and restaurant management.

Education & Teaching

Design Educator
03/2023 – 09/2024California College of the ArtsAdjunct Educator, Interaction Design
06/2018 – 06/2025Skyline CollegeAdjunct EducatorLaunched the college’s first dedicated UX Certificate program.
Education
California State University – SacramentoBachelor of Science, Graphic Design · 2005Best Portfolio Award