How I Work

How I build a UX organization

At GoTo I built UX from a service function into a business driver over nearly four years (May 2022 – January 2026). The stages below are how that happened, and they're the arc I bring to any organization.

1. Service UX: understand the real problem (May – Nov 2022)

• My manager left the week I started, and I ran all of GoTo UX, 20+ people, on my own for about five to six months
• GoTo had no UX research. I requested the first researcher and started what became the Insiders program in my first week, by building relationships with Customer Success, Marketing, and Sales
• Began shifting conversations from features to workflows, starting with Customer Engagement, which had launched without research the week I joined

2. Embedded UX: build the foundation (Nov 2022 – Nov 2023)

• Took on Grasshopper as it moved from keep-the-lights-on to reinvestment
• Grew the research practice as demand grew: three researchers joined, and Insiders became the way product teams reached customers
• Introduced continuous research loops and behavioral tracking: Mixpanel across most products, Tableau for Admin and Grasshopper
• Started Star Trek in spring 2023: a UX-led AI exploration team, led by a staff designer who reported to me
• Star Trek's exploration fed Moonshot (fall 2023): 90 days to build AI tools in Contact Center, including topic and mood detection, reporting on both, and assistive AI shaped around the supervisor and agent roles. It succeeded, and it laid the groundwork for AI Receptionist the following year

3. Strategic UX: move upstream (Nov 2023 – Nov 2024)

• Research embedded in roadmap planning; Insiders extended to the whole research team in mid-2024
• Customer Engagement repositioned into a CX platform; automotive work began in Q4 2024
• AI Receptionist design and build began in fall 2024
• Grew the team's leaders: promoted a staff designer to UX manager and two researchers to Staff and Senior; hired Grasshopper's researcher and the Insiders program manager

4. Business-driver UX: drive measurable growth (Nov 2024 – Jan 2026)

• AI Receptionist launched in Q2 2025, the most successful launch in GoTo's history by speed to target; my team did the first AI Agent build
• GoTo Connect for Automotive launched in Q3 2025 and beat its revenue goal for the year in its first quarter after launch
• Grasshopper went from keep-the-lights-on to featured at company all-hands
• Admin checkout conversion rose from 9% to 22% over three months (August – November 2025)

Principles

• Research before roadmap. Validate early and keep validating. When formal research isn't funded, I find a lightweight way to get the evidence anyway, because the data is always what we need.
• Outcomes, not output. Tie every experience decision to acquisition, adoption, or retention, and track real behavior against those outcomes. Numbers show the pattern; research explains why.
• Validate as we go, not at the end. Short cycles: talk to customers, map the journey, test the map, then test the UI.
• Relationships open the doors. Customer Success managers, sales teams, dealers, and controllers: I build the network first, so research can move at the speed of the product.
• Tools change; fundamentals don't. I use AI tools daily, and I've seen whole toolsets disappear. Jobs to be done, workflows, and outcomes stay constant.

How I lead

• Why, what, how: clarity of intent first
• Positivity, ownership, and accountability; space for healthy disagreement, then disagree and commit
• Direct, timely feedback, so people always know where they stand
• In the trenches: first in, last out, and working weekends alongside the team when the work demanded it
• Grow people: promotions for the people on my teams

How I start an engagement

For consulting work, I follow a 30-60-90 day approach: see how the first 90 days run.

What people say

Excerpts from recommendations on my LinkedIn profile, where the full text lives.

Product partners

Ren was never 'just design.' He operated as a true product partner, deeply involved in customer problems, team dynamics, prioritization, and execution.

Lior Bachar, VP of Product at GoTo, led the admin product team (now VP Product, CX Innovation at Jobber)

Stakeholders, engineers, UX researchers, and product managers all gravitated toward working with him, as he made the process feel effortless even when the problems were anything but.

Maxime Marchand, Senior Director of Product Management, GoTo

He approaches his work with thoughtfulness, collaboration, and a clear commitment to building the right solutions, not just the easiest ones.

Tiani Zufelt, Lead Product Manager, Cox Automotive (worked with Ren at Dealertrack)

Peers, managers, and colleagues

When Ren says 'design is not decoration, it's strategy,' it isn't just a slogan. He's credible saying it because he genuinely understands both the craft side and the business side.

Tibor Kecskeméti, Director of UX, LogMeIn/ITSG (peer in the same leadership organization)

He has this gift for connecting with everyone he meets and building real, lasting networks that span teams, roles, and even companies.

Lars Hacking, Director of UX (managed Ren at Cox Automotive)

His super power is networking with customers to constantly gather insights and validate solutions.

Leban Hyde, UX & Product Designer (worked with Ren at Cox Automotive; Ren was senior but not his manager)

People who reported to me

Ren brings together three qualities that are rarely found in the same person: the clarity of a leader, the trust of a true partner, and the generosity of a mentor.

Thomas Pasiek, Product Design Leader (reported to Ren at GoTo)

Whether it was securing budget for field research, navigating cross-functional dynamics, or clearing organizational blockers, Ren always found a way forward.

Scott Webb, Staff UX Researcher, GoTo (reported to Ren)

Across two companies

Don't hire Ren. That is, don't hire him if you're looking for a UX leader who phones it in, avoids hard problems, ignores the customer, or somehow makes cross-functional work even more painful than it already is. Unfortunately, Ren is none of those things.

Jeff Cook, Product Leader (Ren's product partner at Cox Automotive and GoTo, almost eight years)