Chad Borlase

Chad has a rare mix of creative credibility and operational discipline. Designers trust him because he understands the work at the craft level and gives feedback that makes it better, not just different. Leadership trusts him because he connects that work to business outcomes without hand-waving. He is the kind of leader designers want to work for. Not because he is easy, but because he is clear. You always know where he stands, what good looks like, and why it matters to the client and the business.

I've had the pleasure of working with Chad and can honestly say he's one of the most thoughtful and impactful UX and Customer Experience leaders I've had the opportunity to collaborate with. Chad has an exceptional ability to connect customer needs with business goals, transforming complex challenges into intuitive, engaging digital experiences that deliver real results.

What has always stood out to me is Chad's ability to engage with clients and executive stakeholders. He's an outstanding partner during the sales process, helping clients see what's possible while building trust through his collaborative approach.

Chad is a fantastic design leader who not only knows how to cast, build, and scale holistic global teams, but also how to best address client needs while fostering and protecting talent from politics and organizational dysfunction. He truly embraces agile and digital-first ways of working and knows how to strike a balance among business strategy, technical capability, and a focus on always putting the user first. Above all, he is just a really great guy who deeply cares about the people around him.

Chad didn't bolt AI onto our existing process — he replaced the double diamond outright with X4 IGNITE, built from scratch into an operating model a 350-person global practice now runs on, and it's become one of our sharpest stories in the room with clients.

Chad is a strong client partner. He builds trust, delivers results, and turns successful engagements into long-term relationships and new opportunities by helping clients solve real problems in new ways.

Chad brought a valuable combination of large-scale delivery experience and practical leadership judgment to our conversations. He was candid about what it takes to build and lead distributed experience-design teams, and he translated those lessons into useful guidance rather than abstract theory. He also took the time to mentor several people from my experience team, helping them work through real leadership and delivery challenges with clarity and empathy.

He contributes well beyond the boundaries of his formal remit.

When design meets the tech stack you need someone leading that understands how to bridge that divide. How to lead a team and an organization. As the leader of our Experience Design team, I knew I could depend on Chad as my success partner.

Internally, he helped get things done by bridging gaps across the organization. In pitches and pursuits, he translated our message into client speak that they understood and could apply to their business.