Irene Au

Design Partner

2014 - Current

I work with CEOs in the Khosla Ventures portfolio to help their companies be successful, primarily by building and strengthening their design capabilities which in turn drive value to the businesses and portfolio.

Adjunct Lecturer

2020 - 2021

Adjunct Lecturer for Advanced Product Design: Implementation 1 and 2 (ME216B and ME216C) in Stanford University's Mechanical Engineering department

Yoga Teacher

2012 - 2020

My classes integrate breath, cardio, agility, flexibility, and strength-building movements to fortify and nourish the mind, body, and spirit.

Strategic and Editorial Board Member

2010 - 2018

Rosenfeld Media is the premier publisher of UX books. As an editorial board member, I help guide decisions around what should get published, which authors get support, and what topics are relevant and germaine to UX practitioners. As strategic board member, I help broker valuable connections to Rosenfeld Media with other industry executives and consultants, and advise on future direction and opportunities.

VP, Design

2012 - 2013

With the leadership team, found product-market fit and defined company's strategy, vision, mission, values, and principles. Led design and research to define and create Udacity's product offering.

Entrepreneur in Residence

2012 - 2012

Global Head / Director of User Experience

2006 - 2012

Led global organization of all user experience / design team members (350+), including interaction designers, visual designers, web developers, and user researchers responsible for the UX of all of Google's services and products. Scaled the UX team (design and user research), transformed Google's user research organization, introduced and operationalized design thinking practices through the creation of design sprints and training, articulated and evangelized Google's design principles, laid the foundation for Google's site-wide redesign, and helped make a famously engineering-driven culture more design-oriented.

VP User Experience

2002 - 2006

Responsible for Yahoo's user experience worldwide across all products and central design and infrastructure efforts. Managed team of 150 that included visual design, interaction design, user experience research, and front-end web development.

Director, User Experience

2000 - 2002

Established User Experience and Design team as effective and integrated members of cross-functional product development teams that drive interaction, interface, and visual design for yahoo.com products and services. Responsible for leading and managing all designers and user researchers for Yahoo's .com properties.

Manager, User Interface Design and User Research

1998 - 2000

As the first interaction designer at Yahoo, I built Yahoo’s user-centered design practice and led key design and research projects. Created Yahoo's first usability lab. Introduced user testing, field research, and proactive design methods to the company.

Interaction Designer

1996 - 1998

Designed Netscape Communicator 4.x products, including the browser, mail/news client, and web site editor.