Lorraine Kim
Product Designer · Financial Tools & Workflows
I've always been drawn to the creative — I just spent over 10+ years in institutional finance first.
That time wasn't a detour. It was the education.
My decade inside institutional finance gave me a specific kind of clarity about where financial tools fail the people who depend on them. Now I design what I used to need: risk dashboards for treasury teams, AI-assisted payment flows for cross-border senders, archival systems for cultural estates.
Philosophy
What I believe in
01
Workflow
Ten years inside institutional finance is research I never had to do. The most useful design insight rarely comes from a brief — it comes from sitting at the desk. I bring that operational knowledge to every problem.
02
Adoption
Expert users don't switch software because the UI is beautiful. They switch when something they actually need finally works. I design for adoption, not for delight.
03
Risk
In financial workflows, bad UX has consequences denominated in dollars, not bounce rate. Friction in the right places isn't a flaw — it's the product. I design knowing where the asymmetric risks live.
04
Trust
When AI makes consequential recommendations, accuracy isn't the bottleneck — adoption is. I design the moment between the recommendation and the user's decision to act on it.
Experience
Where I've been
Product Design, Freelance
oojoo studios, San Francisco / New York
2024 - Present
Product Design
Designlab, UX Academy + UX Academy Plus
2023 - 2024
AIM Tradedesk Analyst
Bloomberg, San Francisco
2020 - 2022
AVP
Mizuho Alternative Investments, New York
2009 - 2020
Associate PM
AllianceBernstein, New York
2007 - 2009