Grant Metcalf
User Experience Manager, UL Solutions

Greater Chicago · Senior UX Manager · Enterprise and regulated products

I lead design teams on complex, regulated products, and I design alongside them.

Twenty years in design and leading design teams since 2018, first at Walgreens and now at UL Solutions. I've built a team from 2 designers to 12, fixed how design work gets planned and reviewed, and I do the research, prototyping, and AI workflow design myself. I'm looking for my next Senior UX Manager or Design Manager role.

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70h → 30sCustomer wait for portal access after my team's redesign shipped with automated approvals

2 → 12Walgreens design team, and I hired every one

3 → 1Days to synthesize a research study, using an AI evaluation loop my team built

100K+Registered users on the UL customer portal my team designs

What I bring to your team

I build and grow design teams

At Walgreens I built the visual design team from 2 designers to 12. I wrote the hiring bar, ran every interview, and onboarded every hire. At UL I manage and coach designers, and in 2026 I wrote the case that got one of them promoted.

I make design work predictable

Written intake, capacity sized in points the way engineering sizes its work, and a UX review before every UAT. The product team on UL's customer portal adopted all of it, and my team stopped dropping research to make room for one-off requests.

I do the design work too

I run research, build prototypes in Figma and Figma Make, and design AI workflows myself. Right now I'm designing UL's assessment tool for UL 3115, a new standard for certifying products with embedded AI.

I can get design work funded

At Walgreens I got a shared design system funded by putting a price on the status quo. My business case modeled about $6.4 million a year in lost design and development time. That was a projection to win the budget, not measured savings.

Selected work

01 UL Solutions
User Experience Manager 1,929access requests approved in seconds, not days

Got a stretched design team out of reactive mode on UL's customer portal

When I took over UX for myUL, the portal had more than 100,000 registered users and a design team taking work from whoever asked loudest. I set up intake, capacity sizing, and a UX review before UAT, and the team shipped through it.

One result: with the automated approvals it supports, our account-access redesign cut the wait for portal access from about 70 hours to about 30 seconds.

Read the case study

02 UL Solutions
AI Lab 3 / 10the heuristic score that changed how AI reaches users

Brought AI into certification work that engineers sign their names to

I lead UX for three AI Lab projects at UL. When the first build we tested scored 3 out of 10 in a heuristic review, my team made it a rule: no AI feature reaches users until it passes one.

I'm now designing the UL 3115 assessment tool myself. It's scheduled to launch November 30, 2026.

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03 Walgreens Boots Alliance
Principal UX/UI Design Manager $6.4Mmodeled yearly cost of having no system

Built a 12-person design team at Walgreens and got a design system funded

I grew the visual design team from 2 designers to 12 and ran it on a simple capacity rule: no more than three initiatives at once.

To get a shared design system funded, I built a business case that modeled about $6.4 million a year in lost design and development time. That was a projection, not measured savings.

Read the case study

04 UL Solutions
User Experience Manager Shippedin production, feeding payroll and five SOX controls

Designed the time entry tool UL's payroll and revenue reporting depend on

People across UL's certification work were rebuilding their week from calendars, spreadsheets, and notes, and those hours fed payroll, project costing, and revenue.

I owned UX for Tempus from research through release. It shipped, it still runs in production, and its approvals are part of five SOX controls.

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In their words

Leaders and peers

“His ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution makes him an ideal candidate for a senior leadership role in UX.”
Michael Henry · Senior Director, Transformation and Innovation, UL Solutions

“Grant has done an excellent job balancing customer-specific feedback with the overall requirements for the general conformity assessment process.”
Rock Rocaberte · Product Manager, AI Lab, UL Solutions

“What I particularly appreciated was the simultaneous usability, technical feasibility, and beauty of his design work.”
Phil Daniels · Enterprise Architect, UL Solutions

“Your curiosity and use of AI inputs have produced valuable insights that I'm eager to review.”
Lisa Becker · Senior Manager, Change Management, UL Solutions

“His approach shifted the team's mindset from apprehension, due to past experiences with Flex, to genuine enthusiasm.”
Erik Leider · Conformity Assessment Program Principal, UL Solutions

People I have led

“He actively creates space for team members to voice concerns, genuinely listens, and advocates for our work-life balance.”
Sarah Lai · UX Designer, UL Solutions

“Grant tackles challenging issues head-on with UL leadership, particularly concerning planning, deadlines, and expectations.”
James Damonte · Senior UX Designer, UL Solutions

“His design feedback is specific and actionable, giving clear direction on where to go next.”
Alex Molta · Associate UX Designer, UL Solutions

“His tireless work ethic coupled with sound communication skills created focus where there was often no direction across the wider organization.”
Brian Fugate · Senior Visual Designer, Walgreens

“I appreciate how he adapts his communication for business stakeholders.”
Erik Gamradt · UX Designer, UL Solutions

Go deeper

Want more than the case studies? I'll walk you through the details I can't publish.

Some of the UL and Walgreens work is confidential, so it stays off this site. On a call I'll take you through the capacity plans, the intake process, and how my team reviews AI features before they reach users. Thirty minutes is enough.

Set up a walkthrough

About

Hi, I'm Grant. Most of my work has been on software where mistakes are expensive: pharmacy systems, certification tools, and customer portals for regulated industries.

As a people leader, I would rather build the system than stand over the work. Give people a clear destination, the right tools, and room to fail fast, and they will hand you back something better than you could have imagined.

When I'm not running teams, I'm a devoted father. I draw and I read. I love storytelling, problem solving, and learning new things, and I travel whenever I can to learn the history and culture of new places.

Looking for: Senior UX Manager or Design Manager
Where: Hybrid in Chicagoland, or remote
The work: Leading a design team, close to the work, on products where getting it right matters