Brand + Product Experience Executive | AI Product Strategy • Enterprise SaaS | Design Leadership + Growth Catalyst
About
Hello!
I’m a strategist and creative problem-solver who turns complexity into clarity. Give me a messy brief, an unclear brand, or a product nobody can navigate or use easily, and I’ll find the strategy, the business to consumer alignment, and the design system and structures to add clarity and create the solution.
That instinct started early — building cities in sandboxes, igloos in the snow, and creating event posters by hand — and sharpened through a formal design education and years inside creative agencies, where I learned craft and pace. Leading my own studio, ZIV, deepened this further — running client engagements end-to-end and managing a team, while collaborating with clients across the country (and world), all remotely. Now, I’m looking to bring that strategic and creative range to a team or company where I can focus on the work, not the business behind it.
I don’t call myself a designer or a branding specialist — those labels are too small. I’m a lateral thinker who moves fluidly between disciplines, pulling from a wide toolkit of proven methods and new approaches to design solutions that actually work, not just look good.
Career Highlights
Registered Designer
Design equivalent to the bar exam
4 hour exam plus vetting by interview with professional designers
3 branding awards + 1 product design award + 1 website award
Masters in Design Management/Interaction design
University of Kansas
Redesign of the New Zealand Automobile Life and Funeral Insurance purchase experience resulting in an 80% increase in Sales
Principal UX Consultant & Brand Growth Strategist
My Bio
Cara (Ricarda) Miller is a strategic executive and design leader with over 15 years of experience turning ambiguous business challenges into scalable, revenue-driving solutions. She has held senior leadership roles across startups, agencies, and enterprise organizations, with a consistent focus on driving new value through innovation.
Cara began her career designing and architecting large-scale digital solutions at MMGY Global, where she introduced user experience as a core practice and delivered work for major travel and hospitality brands including Wyndham Worldwide, Orbitz, and Travelocity.
In 2011, Cara took on the role of Managing Director and Chief Strategy Officer at ZIV, a strategic design consultancy serving clients from early-stage startups to global enterprises, including white-labeled work for agency partners such as Isovera, 50,000 Feet, and Pace Communications. Under her leadership, ZIV delivered award-winning solutions — including a government app rated #1 for user experience among 30 competitors and Sitefinity's Financial Website of the Year — and grew sales by 80% for New Zealand Automobile Association. She also serves on the leadership board of One Eleven Global, a non-profit, and is applying design and AI-driven technology to new markets under ZIV.
When Babel Street acquired Dunami, Cara stepped into the role of Director of Product Design + Design Ops, scaling the design team of 4 to 7 and leading a full reinvention of the company's flagship product — improving usability, integrating AI, and building sophisticated analytics into core workflows. Following Babel Street's acquisition by Veritas Capital, she led the integration of newly acquired products into the design ecosystem.
At Babel Street, Cara developed deep expertise in critical intelligence and threat mitigation use cases — including facility and event protection, executive protection, and insider threat — building both general intelligence analytics and specialized AI workflows. She has presented to customers and prospects across North America, Europe, and Asia, and continues to work with organizations across a range of industries.
Cara holds a B.A.-equivalent (GRDE Design, Georgian College) and an M.A. in Design Management from the University of Kansas, and has taught user experience design at the college level. Her achievements have been recognized in the Kansas City Business Journal and RGD's Annual Branding Who's Who, and she was named a Forbes Next 1000 Honoree in 2021.