UX, UI & Creative Direction for Chief App

Project Intro

Chief is a private network and membership organization for senior executive women, designed to foster connection and mentorship among its members. With clubhouses in major U.S. cities, Chief’s physical spaces served as central hubs for networking and curated programming. In early 2019, Chief sought to evolve beyond its reliance on Slack as the primary communication tool for members. Slack’s one-size-fits-all structure became unwieldy as the organization scaled into new markets. Members wanted a way to connect deeply with their local communities while maintaining access to a broader national network. The goal was to create a fully custom mobile app that served as an integrated platform for messaging, forums, events, hiring, and personalized group engagement. The project began just before the onset of COVID-19, which rapidly accelerated timelines. With clubhouses shuttered overnight, the app became a critical lifeline to maintain community and connection during an unprecedented period of isolation.

design goals

Design Principles

Process

Designing Chief’s app required a strategic, end-to-end approach rooted in collaboration. The challenge was to build a multi-functional platform that balanced personalization with scale while feeling premium and intuitive for a high-powered executive audience. We began by partnering with Chief’s VP of Product and senior project manager to define the MVP and roadmap key features. Early workshops revealed Slack’s limitations and the need for a more focused, location-aware experience. Instead of tackling features in isolation, we mapped out the entire product ecosystem in low-fidelity wireframes, enabling the team to visualize structure, avoid fragmentation, and move quickly into iteration. User interviews followed, conducted virtually as COVID began to reshape the world. These conversations validated core UX decisions and highlighted key areas of friction, including notification overload, lack of message clarity, and overwhelming content. Insights from this phase directly informed refinements across architecture and interaction design. As the project shifted into high-fidelity design, we adapted Chief’s brand identity for mobile, refining contrast, typography, and layout to bring clarity to a dense interface. Every screen and state was designed in Figma, resulting in hundreds of precisely considered variations. We flew to California to meet with Chief’s development partner, Vincit, conducting a full-day walkthrough to align on structure and functionality. That hands-on collaboration continued through delivery, supported by a detailed style guide and direct feedback loops. Once the pandemic accelerated timelines, we shifted focus to the most essential features. Forums and messaging were prioritized for launch to meet urgent community needs, while other tools rolled out in later phases. This phased strategy enabled speed without compromising quality and helped Chief maintain meaningful connection at a critical moment in time.

challenges

Building a platform of this scale required navigating strategic and tactical complexity under intense time pressure. The app needed to feel premium and effortless while supporting a wide range of features, including private messaging, localized forums, event programming, hiring tools, and Core group workflows. As the pandemic accelerated the need for digital connection, timelines compressed dramatically. The team responded with clear prioritization, fast decision-making, and tight cross-disciplinary collaboration. A modular UX framework was adopted to manage the app’s breadth, allowing for consistency across hundreds of interconnected screens, states, and flows. We began with a strong brand foundation from Pentagram, whose visual identity provided a clear voice and point of view. The challenge was translating that into a dense, high-functioning mobile environment. Key elements like color, type, and layout were refined and extended to enhance usability while preserving brand integrity. When deadlines collapsed, the team shifted quickly, prioritizing the most essential features for launch. Additional functionality rolled out in phases, allowing the platform to meet urgent community needs while maintaining long-term scalability and quality.

Results

The launch of Chief’s custom platform marked a pivotal moment for the organization. Members immediately embraced the app as their new central hub, reporting a vastly improved ability to find relevant conversations, connect with peers, and engage in curated events. The seamless transition away from Slack eliminated the noise and friction of irrelevant content, while Core groups and forums saw significant spikes in engagement during the peak of COVID isolation. Beyond solving the immediate need for connection, the app provided a scalable foundation that enabled Chief to continue expanding into new markets and solidified its role as a leader in digital community-building for executives.