Wai dela Cruz

Director of UX & Product Design

I’ve led and mentored design teams of 12+, scaled PwC ProEdge to cut design turnaround by 50%, and launched an AI-powered Growth Coach serving 100K+ users. I’ve generated $35M in new business through strategic design at Oracle. I’m now focused on championing AI-first ways of working that help teams design better products, faster.

Case Studies

ProEdge

ProEdge Design System

Education, Technology

Transforming product development through systematic design leadership
Median Care

Median Care

Healthcare

An at-Home self-monitoring tool for infectious disease symptoms
NADA

NADAGuides

Automotive, E-Commerce

Transforming revenue model while elevating user experience
Wai Reyes Photography

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

Real Estate

Elevating the agent experience with a seamless, consolidated platform
Travel Bug

TripBuddies

Travel

Exploring adaptive intelligence in group travel planning
Car Finder

Los Angeles County Assessor's Office

Public Sector / Government

Transforming a legacy government assessment system

Innovation Approach

market

Champion AI-first ways of working

Help teams use AI across research, ideation, prototyping, testing, and delivery to design better products, faster, while keeping people at the center

user

Build human-centered design culture

Foster creative confidence, collaboration, and a strong understanding of customer needs across teams and organizations

ideate

Experiment, learn, and iterate

Use research, experimentation, and measurable outcomes to turn ideas into better experiences and continuously improve what we build

system

Think systematically and design for scale

Create reusable patterns, systems, and workflows that improve consistency, quality, accessibility, and team efficiency

About

Education
MA Design Management, SCAD
MFA Interactive Design, SCAD
UX & Customer-Centered Design Certificate, CSUF
BA Development Studies, DLSU


Notable Experience
pwc

PwC
Creative Director, UX

oracle

Oracle
Experience Design Lead

jdp

J.D. Power
Lead UI/UX Designer


Resume   |    High level portfolio


Certifications
Generative AI for UI UX Design Specialization, IBM • Human-Centered Design, PwC • Inclusive Mindset, PwC • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle


Key Achievements
Business Growth
$35M in revenue from strategic design workshops (Oracle)

Operational Efficiency
50% faster design delivery (PwC ProEdge)
50% efficiency improvement (Oracle)

User Impact
+80% vehicle search usability (J.D. Power)
+40% adoption growth (Oracle)
AI personalization (PwC ProEdge)

Team Leadership
12+ designers managed and mentored


Industry Experience
Technology • Financial Services • Healthcare • Travel • Government • Automotive • E-Commerce • Real Estate • Logistics • Education • Entertainment


Kind words

Design Leaderhip & Operations Management

Wai is a fantastic leader who has been pivotal in establishing and maturing the ProEdge product. Wai tackled inefficiencies and inconsistencies by launching the Design Acceleration initiative, which aligned with our goals of efficiency, consistency, and accessibility. Wai is great with people, she cares and is passionate about her work. She invested her time across different practice areas to gain consensus and manage change. This leadership reduced design to delivery turnaround time by accelerated product development, and ensured brand consistency across all user touchpoints. Wai's commitment to accessibility has made ProEdge inclusive and compliant with standards.

Sheree K
Practice Lead, PwC

Service Design

Wai brought her expertise in service design to the engagement both directly by applying her knowledge in building client deliverables, and indirectly by educating other team members in understanding the framework of service design and application to client needs. The client was very happy with the outcomes of the engagement, and the ability of the PwC team to provide the specialized skills and capabilities that they were exactly looking for. Wai helped us build a strong client relationship that resulted in additional work opportunities in 2022.

Tom L
Engagement Leader, PwC

Design Leadership

Wai dela Cruz spent countless hours with the BHHS team understanding their requirements and taking them through her signature design workshops. The outcome of this massive Oracle collaboration was an agreement for a $4.5M in NAC Consulting Services and $3.9M for Apps Consulting, totaling $35M in TCV.

Aaron M
SVP, Strategic Services & Partners, Oracle

UX Design

Wai produced design concepts that really pleased our leadership and the program team. It was encouraging to see how quickly and with quality she rendered these for us and the “art of the possible” as we move forward to build this mission critical solution for our agents, employees, and customers. We really appreciate her work and are looking forward for more great things to come as she helps us with our UX designs and plans.

Rob B
Program Manager, Berkshire Hathaway HSOA

Cross-Functional Team Leadership

Wai is a leader. She is highly skilled in all that is UX and UI, she is strong, she is diligent. Gracious with her time, Wai was always willing to teach me what it takes to put the user first. Committed and creative, her designs are calculated and clear, her research helped identify problems, for which she always had solutions for. Experienced in Agile, Wai also played a mentoring role in our team's transition to Scrum, helping the team achieve maximum efficiency. Best of all, she is a spark-plug of energy and just a fun person to be around, I hope our paths will cross again soon.

Jonathan B
Software Engineer, J.D. Power