Currently a design leader at Pushpay

James Rutherford

Outcome-driven design leader.

Senior UX Manager building the operating model, frameworks, and team craft behind Pushpay's modernization, from product trios and AI-native workflows to a measurable design impact framework.

At a glance

  • 15+ years

    designing and leading product teams across enterprise SaaS, fintech, and global services.

  • 1 → 8

    grew the Pushpay UX function from a single contractor to seven designers and a researcher.

  • 4 trios

    designed and launched the Product Trio program at Pushpay. Currently the design representative at the Group Leadership Trio level for four active trios.

  • 6 workstreams

    concurrent UX delivery across the Staq platform modernization programme.

  • 1 in 4 years

    voluntary departure across a peak team of eight direct reports, retained through a post-layoff period.

  • AWS AI Practitioner

    completed the 8-hour AWS AI Practitioner learning plan to support AI product conversations with engineering.

Selected work

Three pieces of evidence for the operating model, the delivery, and the strategy work it enabled.

  • Org design FY26

    Product Trios

    Designing and launching the cross-functional operating model that runs four concurrent modernization workstreams at Pushpay.

    Role: Architect and launch lead

  • Programme leadership FY26

    Staq platform modernization

    Leading UX delivery across six concurrent workstreams, a mobile-first product surface, and the Shell rebrand the programme is delivered through.

    Role: UX lead

  • Strategy FY25 to FY26

    AI transformation

    Two parallel tracks: shifting how design gets done through INFLECT and ODAD, and shaping AI product strategy from Sidekick to NaLa.

    Role: Track lead

Frameworks

Reusable thinking I've built and applied. Each one is an artifact other teams now use.

  • INFLECT

    A workshop framework for navigating AI inflection points, including Ladders of Value mapping the uniquely human work to invest in.

    Pushpay AI transformation, June 2025

  • Impact framework

    A quantified prioritisation model that turns design opportunities into numeric scores leadership can plan against.

    Applied across five Settings areas, FY26

  • Product trios model

    The operating-model pattern for cross-functional UX, Product, and Engineering trios that elevate design to an equal partner in product decisions.

    Architected for Staq modernization, FY26

How I lead

I lead design as an outcome function, not a service function. The work I'm proudest of isn't a screen, it's an operating model: the cross-functional trios that now run modernization, the prioritisation framework leadership plans against, the workshop frameworks the team still uses months later.

I stay hands-on. In FY26 I shipped vision prototypes that secured programme funding, ran an eleven-participant usability study end-to-end, and established AI-assisted near-front-end development as the team's next operating mode. Player-coach is the only mode I know how to lead in.

And I treat accessibility, retention, and craft as the same discipline. If the system isn't usable, the team isn't stable, or the artifacts aren't honest, the strategy isn't real.