Samuel Custer, UX Leader
Transforming UX into a Driver of Business Growth and Efficiency.
Fortune 500 UX leader driving conversion optimization, enterprise design systems, and high-velocity team growth.
Trusted at Scale
Latest Impact at Santander Bank
73%
YoY Complaint Reduction
Implemented a UX debt prioritization framework to reduce tier-3 support escalations.
2 to 11
Scale & Orchestration
Built a centralized, multidisciplinary UX organization of designers, researchers, and writers serving the Consumer Bank.
#8 to #2
Loyalty & Retention
Led the UX strategy behind Santander's two-year climb from #8 to #2 in J.D. Power Regional Mobile App Satisfaction.
What Others Say
Leadership through the lens of colleagues.
"Samuel has been consistently delivering well thought out work that is grounded in user centered research and designing with the customer at the front and center. What makes him extraordinary is his efforts to seek out, understand, and incorporate research (qualitative and quantitative research, Voice of the Customer, competitor benchmarks, brand and design standards, etc.) into innovative ideas and designs that can be developed efficiently for reuse. His collaboration with product owners, developers, and various partners is ensuring we are building from the strongest possible foundation for our customers."
Head of Digital User Experience
Citizens Bank
"Samuel is perhaps the most knowledgeable designer I've ever worked with. While directing our team, he was also in the trenches, delivering design day in and day out, without losing sight of design and strategy at the executive level, both here in the U.S. and internationally.
- His development background meant he was a best practices whisperer to business partners who didn't have that knowledge.
- He created a UX Debt process to help our small team improve the user experience in an agile environment...
- He masterfully contributed to our world-class design system, Flame.
- His design feedback to our team and the organization was always grounded in user needs, competitive data and/or usability heuristics and platform guidelines.
- He was able to articulate design decisions to the org in ways I'm still learning from.
And he gave me the autonomy to grow into the designer I am today. Samuel is a designer's designer, a developer's designer and a business's designer. If he's not already running his own company or studio by the time you read this, hire Samuel. It'll be like hiring an entire startup."
Previous Direct Report
Santander Bank