Christian Reuter
Christian Reuter’s professional headshot

Hello, I’m Christian!

I’m a product design & UX research leader in Raleigh, NC, driving clarity, craft, and culture in high-growth companies creating intelligent products.

About

I’m currently working remotely as the head of design at Iterable, a marketing automation platform, where we help brands better communicate with their customers. It’s an exciting space, with all sorts of interesting challenges around AI, big data, and tools for creation. I love getting to work with technology that’s human-centered, makes people’s jobs easier, and amplifies their creative potential.

At Iterable, I’ve scaled the design team, built our research and design systems practices, led complex AI and modernization efforts, and helped shape a multi-year product vision.

Prior to that, I was the design director at thoughtbot’s Raleigh studio, where we built custom web and mobile applications for our clients around the Southeast.

I’m a full-stack generalist with a bias for clarity, momentum, and thoughtful systems. I care deeply about craft, continuous learning, and building cultures where people feel empowered to do their best work—especially in distributed environments.

Contact

Email
hello@christianreuter.io
LinkedIn
@christian-reuter-b8ab371b3

Work

A few nice things colleagues have shared

“Christian is a seasoned leader who takes initiative before any is requested. He has stepped into very ambiguous strategic conversations with great confidence. Through his leadership and facilitation we are able to come to critical clarity. I believe Christian is one of the most thoughtful partners across the org when it comes to distilling key components of strategic thought specific to our platform and in collaboration across the org.”
— VP Product, 2024
“Christian helps me feel more confident and inspired to take more risks in my work”
— Managing Director, 2018
“Over the past year, Christian has done a uniquely impressive job steering Iterable toward the future. He led our new design system creation, spearheaded scaling our user research approach, led new product concepts design sprints, championed product design principles. He keeps the team aligned, cuts through ambiguity, approaches challenges with a smile and kindness for everyone around him. He's a secret weapon, and we're lucky to have him.”
— SVP Product, 2021
“There are so many areas where I feel Christian truly excels in his role, but the number one thing has to be his ability to empower the people he manages. As director of product design, his ability to empower the product design team is what has made all of the UI/UX improvements possible and it's why we continue to see an influx of customer compliments about our product's usability. His leadership and genuine care for the people and products he oversees comes through in every meeting and every decision he makes. Even through our current turbulent times, where he's having to manage more than ever, he continues to excel and pushes us all to be better each and every day. Iterable is lucky to have Christian and I'm lucky I get to work with and learn from him.”
— Senior Product Designer, 2025
“You are the most thoughtful and talented design leader I've worked with yet—truly a design role model. Your ability to care deeply about both the work and the people behind it is something I'll carry forward. I'll be leaving with so many lessons from you—about craft, leadership, and the impact of design at an organizational level.”
— Principal Product Designer, 2025
“Christian, your ability to lead, critique, design, and produce is incredibly impressive. There is no doubt that you're at least 50% of the success of the office.”
— Senior Software Engineer, 2018
“Christian's superpower is his ability to genuinely listen to ideas coming from other folks, and give them a fair shake-even if they don't work out, or if he doesn't agree. He's so good at making people feel seen and heard-not because it's some kind of trick he's good at, but because he's genuinely interested and curious in ideas that aren't his own.”
— Principal Technical Writer, 2023

Shaping the Iterable Vision

Helping align leadership, inspire the company, and tell a bold story about the future of AI-powered marketing.

Iterable's redesigned home page interface

At a time when the industry was rapidly evolving and our teams were navigating ambiguity, I led a cross-functional initiative to define and articulate Iterable’s long-term product vision.

My goal was threefold:

  • Align executives around a unified, customer-centered future
  • Inspire the company and rally the team around a clear direction
  • Position Iterable as a strategic, AI-first partner in the eyes of the market
Program management interface

To do this, I assembled a working group that included our CEO, SVP of Product Marketing & Partnerships, SVP of Engineering, and our SVP (later VP) of Product. I partnered closely with a UX researcher and a principal designer to explore bold ideas, test hypotheses, and iterate rapidly through vision drafts. Our process was deeply collaborative—with dozens of working sessions and ongoing stakeholder reviews to build buy-in.

The centerpiece of the work was a live, in-browser interactive prototype: a forward-looking concept experience that tied together AI, automation, personalization, and scale. We demoed it at our company’s fiscal year kickoff and later shared it publicly at our customer conference with over 1,000 attendees.

One of my proudest moments was presenting the vision on-stage to the entire company—followed by a live panel discussion alongside our CEO, VP of Product, and SVP of Engineering.

Customer journey mapping interface

All this drove a few key outcomes:

  • Influenced a reorg to dedicate R&D resources toward long-term strategic work
  • Drove alignment across product, engineering, and go-to-market teams
  • Increased employee sentiment around leadership vision by 19 percentage points
  • Sparked customer and market interest, including press coverage and ongoing conversations with strategic accounts

This project was a reminder of two of design’s greatest superpowers, helping envision possible futures, and shaping what a company believes.

Designing for AI

Making intelligence feel intuitive, trustworthy, and deeply useful in real-world marketing workflows.

Predictive goals and analytics interface

Predictive AI: One of our earliest AI features, Predictive Goals helps marketers forecast how likely an individual is to convert on a certain goal, allowing marketers to be more timely and relevant in their messaging.

The idea was born during a design sprint I facilitated with data scientists, product managers, engineers, and SMEs. We explored how we could surface predictive insights in a way that felt actionable and trustworthy. I led the MVP design and validated it with customers, ensuring we struck the right balance between simplicity and power.

The impact was significant: Redfin saw a 72% lift in converting sellers to an active state, and BIG4 Holiday Parks reported a 156% boost in conversions.

The feature has since evolved under my team’s guidance, and is now core to how many of our customers plan their campaigns. It’s become the foundation for how we bring predictive modeling into the hands of everyday marketers.

Next best action recommendations interface

Prescriptive AI: Next Best Action identifies underperforming journeys and recommends specific ways to re-engage audiences—turning AI insights into guided, actionable steps.

As the primary design stakeholder, I focused on ensuring the experience felt clear, useful, and seamlessly integrated into a marketer’s workflow. I worked closely with the team to shape early concepts, provide iterative feedback, and protect the bar for quality through launch.

Iterable’s AI Suite is the cherry on top, offering Predictive Goals, Next Best Action insights, and Send Time Optimization to engage the right users at the perfect moment. Iterable is proof that personalization isn’t just a buzzword; it’s the future—and it’s already here.
— Helena Joshi, Loyalty, Retention & CRM Coordinator, BIG4 Holiday Parks
Journey assist
                      interface

Generative AI: Journey Assist is the market’s first generative AI-powered journey builder. It allows marketers to describe the experience they want to create in plain language and generates a customizable journey map, ready for refinement.

I served as executive sponsor for this project, helping ensure that quality remained high from concept through launch. I supported the team with regular design reviews, in-depth customer research, and rich, high-fidelity prototyping.

This project was as much about how we worked as what we shipped—tight feedback loops, collaboration between design and DSML, and a deep focus on clarity and trust.

Iterable customers are seeing tangible ROI from Journey Assist, including a 25% increase in conversions and a 10% boost in audience engagement. Customers like Nextdoor and Cinemark have reported an average 15% reduction in effort and substantial time savings when creating complex customer journeys. This innovative tool enables the quick implementation and iteration of new ideas, empowering marketing teams to move beyond routine tasks and embrace strategic innovation and creativity.

Modernizing Iterable's UX

A strategic redesign that refreshed our visual language, strengthened our design system, and laid the foundation for scalable, customer-centered innovation.

Old screenshot of Iterable’s Studio feature showing outdated interface design New screenshot of Iterable’s Studio feature showing modernized interface design

Designing a Modern Foundation for Growth: As Iterable scaled to meet the needs of modern marketers, our platform’s UI had started to show its age—visually inconsistent, functionally fragmented, and increasingly difficult to evolve. We knew it was time for a foundational transformation.

I led a company-wide modernization initiative, aligning design, engineering, and product around a shared goal: evolve the product experience without disrupting what customers already loved. We named this effort Aurora, symbolizing a fresh start with clarity and warmth at its core.

Old screenshot of Iterable’s campaigns index showing legacy interface New screenshot of Iterable’s campaigns index showing modernized interface

Balancing Familiarity with Progress: Modernization isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s about creating a coherent, resilient foundation for future innovation. We rebuilt the UI from the ground up: introducing a new design system, refreshing the visual language, improving accessibility, and reducing cognitive load across key workflows. But we did it with care—making incremental changes, validating decisions with customers, and preserving core interaction patterns.

This approach minimized disruption while steadily raising the bar for product quality.

Old screenshot of Iterable’s push template editor showing legacy design New screenshot of Iterable’s push template editor showing modernized design

Laying the Groundwork for the Future: Aurora was a mindset shift. We invested in scalable systems and patterns, enabling teams to build faster and more confidently. Alongside the visual upgrade, we fostered stronger cross-functional collaboration and raised internal expectations for craft.

Today, this modernization effort continues to fuel Iterable’s evolution, shaping how we build, test, and design across the platform. It’s been one of our most impactful and far-reaching design initiatives, and one that continues to pay dividends.

Building a culture of trust

Creating environments where designers feel safe to take risks, share ideas, and do their best work.

Team charter document showing collaborative design principles

Great design happens when people feel safe to take risks, push boundaries, and grow together. At Iterable, I cultivated a culture rooted in trust and collaboration, enabling our team to thrive in a fast-paced, distributed environment.

Our Product Design Team Charter reflects these shared principles: communicate candidly, support each other, and raise the bar for quality, all while staying kind and inclusive. This culture helped us achieve a team engagement score of 100%, 21 percentage points above the company average.

Design team retreat
            showing collaborative activities

Trust and excellence go hand in hand. I worked across product, engineering, and customer teams to ensure design was seen as a dependable, non-blocking partner. By facilitating collaboration and creating clarity, I helped the team consistently deliver with precision and creativity. Our focus on Clarity, Autonomy, Meaning, Progress, and Social Inclusion ensured the team felt supported and energized, even while holding ourselves to best-in-class standards.

This culture of trust shaped not just how we worked with each other but also how we designed for our users. We led with empathy, deeply understanding customer needs and challenges, while upholding a strong sense of accountability to ship thoughtful, high-quality experiences. Internally and externally, trust has been the cornerstone of raising the bar for what design can achieve.