{charleneyxp@gmail.com} {+65 93621911} {www.linkedin.com/in/charlene-yong} {www.charlene.monster}

Charlene Yong

Experience design leader with 10 years in design, including 8 in UX/UI. Leads a regional design team across 7 consumer brands, connecting digital and in-store journeys with the people, processes, and shared systems behind them. Uses customer research, analytics, and practical AI workflows to guide product decisions and reduce avoidable work.

Download resume (PDF) Referral letter

UX/UI Design Lead | Jan 2023 - Present

Swee Lee / Vista Musical Instruments

Built and led the UX practice for 7 consumer brands across 8 markets, directing a 3-person design team while owning research and product decisions end to end.
Ran A/B tests and shipped UI changes across storefronts serving 200,000+ monthly users.
Rebuilt the customer research programme, consolidating 3 legacy surveys and lifting quarterly participation 42% with a new checkout entry point.
Led a site-wide navigation revamp from card-sorting research; survey data shows navigation satisfaction improving across the three years since.
Turned dead-end product pages into continuation paths. 17,883 users engaged the stock indicator across 3 markets, with use sustained over time.
Diagnosed problems behind the interface, tracing a kiosk decline to stale content and rerouted traffic, and specifying the tracking needed to link feature use to sales.
Governed a shared design system across 5 Shopify stores, improving page-load speed by 20%. Introduced AI into production workflows from 2024 for imagery, product copy and brief screening, cutting content production time by 35%.

Caldecott Music Group (Company Information)

Go to Swee Lee Go to MONO Go to Heritage Guitars Go to Harmony Guitars

Past Employment

Senior UX Strategist & Consultant | Dec 2020 - Jan 2023

KPMG Digital Village, Advisory

Designed client reskins of UNIFY, KPMG’s white-label customer experience platform, for BMW and STB, working with the UNIFY product owner to keep one core platform adaptable across brands. Each implementation billed over SGD 175K.
Facilitated UX workshops and ideation for KONE on a difficult growth problem: how to drive lift sales when customers typically only upgrade every 10 years or so.
Led design-thinking workshops for Johnson & Johnson’s contact lens ESG initiative, which ended with the client selecting a recycling programme to pursue.
Established reusable design systems and governance, so one platform could be reskinned across multiple client brands.
Hired and mentored designers across client engagements.

UI Contractor | May 2020 - Dec 2020 (concurrent contract)

ARC Community Rediscovered

Sole designer partnering with the board, product manager, and tech lead to take a community platform from concept to launch.
Guided two product pivots through user testing and market feedback, delivering a validated MVP within eight months.
Established the design system and UX architecture for subsequent development.

Go to ARC Community

UI Designer & UX Researcher | Apr 2019 - Oct 2020

PLUS65 Interactive

Designed and prototyped blockchain-enabled CRM and payment products for Chinese B2B clients.
Partnered with engineers to deliver responsive user flows and improve usability-testing turnaround by 25%.

Go to Plus 65

UI Designer & UX Researcher | Sep 2018 - Mar 2019

Reassemble

Conducted UX research and interface design for digital products serving international clients.
Improved collaboration across distributed product, engineering, and project teams, reducing feedback turnaround time.

Skills

Experience Strategy / Product Experience / Design Leadership / Team Mentoring / Design Thinking / Cross-Functional Leadership / User Research & Testing / Service Design / Omnichannel Experience / Design Systems / Rapid Prototyping / Design Governance / Product R&D / AI-Assisted Design / Analytics

Educational Qualifications

Diploma in Communication Design
Temasek Polytechnic Design School

In-Person Diploma, 2014 to 2017

UXDI by General Assembly

In-Person Certificate, 2018

Design Thinking Practise-3
by Emerge Creatives Group LLP

In-Person Certificate, 2024

AI for UX Design by Design Lab

Online Certificate, 2025

Languages

English & Mandarin { Written & Spoken }

David Nam (Le Trieu Hai Nam)
Managing Director of Vista Musical Instruments

Talal Ikhwwan
ex-KPMG, Head of Digital Village

Tang Hong Xiang
Head of Design, HSBC Life

Recommendations

Daniel Ling

Head of UX Design, Founder of Emerge Creatives Training Co

Design Thinking course teacher | August 21, 2024

“What impressed me most was Charlene’s unwavering commitment to and enthusiasm for Design Thinking.”

Michelle Khor

Specializes in Digital Strategy, Innovation and Customer Experience

Senior collaborator | October 14, 2022

“Charlene is confident in her work and developed great presentation and facilitation skillset.”

Hongxiang Tang

Head of Design, HSBC Life

Direct manager | September 1, 2020

“She always goes the extra mile for any task that is assigned to her.”

View two more recommendations

Pang Jin, Yeoh (PJ)

Design Educator

Lecturer | August 31, 2020

“The presentation of her work shows significant effort, good judgment and attention to detail.”

Prem Raj

Engineering Manager, APAC at foodpanda

Senior collaborator | August 26, 2020

“She is never afraid to ask the right questions for the betterment of the product/application.”