From Cost Center to Strategic Asset: Redefining the Role of Design

“Having a seat at the table means the ability to influence with valued impact so that when we set the train on the tracks, we know we’re going in the right direction.” - Paul Strike

If you have ever been asked to “just mock it up” five minutes before a sprint planning session, you already know the problem this fireside set out to name. Design is still widely treated as an execution function, a finishing layer, a service desk for screens, buttons, and polish. Paul Strike and Falguni Desai did not pretend that this was a rare misunderstanding. They treated it as a structural pattern across industries, especially in places like banking and capital markets, where output, compliance, and KPIs have traditionally outshouted craft.

What made the conversation land was that neither of them approached it as a complaint. Paul came with the perspective of someone who has led design inside some of the most demanding financial institutions. Falguni came from 25 years on Wall Street, now advising banking and capital markets firms at Microsoft. Together, they framed the shift from “cost center” to “strategic asset” as a literacy problem, a framing problem, and a partnership problem. In other words, not something solved by better slides, but something solved by changing how the business understands value.

Why UX and Design Still Get Confused

Paul opened with a question that immediately hit a nerve: why is there continued ambiguity around UX versus design?

Falguni’s answer was grounded in how software has reshaped everything. As life became “appified,” design became flattened in the minds of many executives into what they see on the screen. Buttons, colours, layout. The visible layer. That flattening then becomes an organisational shortcut: if design is what you see, then design is something you apply late, when the build needs a UI.

Paul added a sharper provocation. He challenged the idea that you can literally “design an experience.” An experience, he argued, is an emotional reaction to a moment, shaped by memory and expectation. You can influence it by shaping the product, the service, the environment, but you do not control the customer’s emotional response. The bike metaphor made it tangible. You design the bike. The ride can feel thrilling to one person and terrifying to another. Same product, different experience.

The issue is not semantics. When organisations equate experience with visuals, “UX” becomes synonymous with wireframes and mockups. Paul pointed to how even wireframing, originally meant to communicate hierarchy and structure, has become visually dressed up. That creates confusion at the top. A wireframe with textures and colour can trigger brand alarm bells, making the design look like surface-level styling rather than strategic problem framing. When leaders cannot decode what they are looking at, the value becomes harder to trust.

The Real Reasons Design Gets Parked as Tactical

Falguni widened the lens beyond terminology. She named a few structural drivers that keep design stuck in the “execution” category. Where does the design team sit in the org? Are they close to the CEO, the Chief Product Officer, or the strategy remit, or are they buried in a delivery layer where they only receive work after decisions are made? She also highlighted literacy. Many executives simply have not been educated on what design actually covers from concept through launch, and how early involvement changes outcomes.

It is not that leaders are hostile to design. It is that they often have no mental model for design as a differentiator rather than a cost.

Literacy First, Then Influence

When asked what strategic imperatives designers can take to demonstrate greater influence, Falguni went straight to literacy. Not a one-off workshop, but ongoing education for non-design executives. If your CFO, Chief Strategy Officer, or senior leaders do not understand the full role of design, they will continue to resource it like a finishing function.

Her Starbucks versus Dunkin Donuts example was a simple way of making design legible to business leaders. You know what to expect before you walk in. Speed, tone, price point, comfort, and even how long you might stay. That expectation is not created at the end by “making it look nice.” It is created by decisions across the service, product, and brand experience that shape behaviour and perception. When you present the design in those terms, it becomes harder to treat it as optional polish.

Move From Output to Strategy Through Framing

Paul’s answer was about problem framing and pre-planning. He described strategy as aligning on a set of choices that define how you will win, including the why, who, when, and especially the how. The point of framing is not to solve immediately. It is to set the stage for early alignment, productive challenge, and delivery readiness.

This is where he connected design to the language businesses already respect. Pre-planning helps teams assess desirability, feasibility, and viability, not as abstract workshop vocabulary, but as a shared operating stance. When design leaders show up to those conversations with product, marketing, and engineering and help frame the problem in the context of quarterly growth goals and real customer motivations, influence shifts. Design moves from “make it pop” to systems thinking and decision shaping.

The Question Every CFO Asks: Where’s the Money?

One of the most practical audience questions was also the most familiar: money talks, so how do we speak the business language without stretching the truth?

Falguni’s answer was to make the process explicit. Show the step-by-step role design plays from concept onward, including resourcing and cost. Then make the alternative equally visible: if you do not involve design early, here are the risks. She emphasised that financial stakeholders often respond more strongly to risk framing than to pure benefit framing.

Paul added an escalation lens many designers rely on: the cost of change multiplies the later you discover problems. He referenced the idea commonly expressed as a one to ten to one hundred effect. Fixing issues early is cheaper. Fixing them late costs exponentially more because more people, more dependencies, and more rework pile up. He also pushed designers to connect the work to business metrics leaders understand: time to serve, cost to serve, and opportunity modelling, supported by clear current state and future state views. The core move is translation. You are not asking for belief in design. You are showing the cost of delaying it.

Is It Still a Battle at the Executive Level?

When asked whether UX value is still debated at executive levels, Falguni was candid. Yes, it is still a constant battle of education. In banking, especially, she has seen design repeatedly pushed off as “later” until an urgent event makes it unavoidable. That urgency might be competitive pressure, a transformation mandate, or a moment where customer expectations have shifted faster than the organisation.

Paul reframed that tension as an opportunity. Instead of rushing to solve a problem, he described taking a longer-term view of the people behind it. Why do they believe what they believe? What would help them unlearn old assumptions and retrain toward a better model? That is design thinking applied to stakeholder dynamics, not just user journeys.

AI, Speed, and Going Slow to Go Fast

In the extended discussion, AI naturally surfaced. Paul’s advice was not to stop, but to slow down and keep playing. Experiment, learn prompts, explore research synthesis and hypothesis modelling, but do not get stuck on any single technique. Falguni took the longer view, describing AI as a multi-decade journey, comparable to the early internet era when tools existed, but the real shape of the future was still unclear.

The moderator summed it up neatly: go slow to go fast. Learn enough to apply AI where it creates value, without betting your entire practice on today’s version of the tooling.

The Seat at the Table Is Not a Chair, It’s a Coalition

The conversation closed on the evergreen question: how do you get and keep a seat at the table?

Paul’s definition was precise. Having a seat at the table means influencing decision-making with valued impact, so the organisation sets the train on the right tracks before momentum makes change expensive. For him, the durability of design influence depends on sponsorship and partnership. If you have invested partners, your trajectory is boundless. If you do not, your influence is fragile.

Falguni, speaking from the business side, made the path more tactical. In many organisations, your best early allies are the Chief Product Officer or Chief Strategy Officer. Those roles already operate cross-functionally and are more likely to bring design in early. Going straight to the CFO is harder. Build credibility through the hybrid roles first, then the financial leadership conversation becomes easier because it is backed by results, not advocacy.

Redefining the Role of Design Starts With How You Show Up

The clearest throughline of the fireside was this: design will not be seen as a strategic asset just because designers insist it is. It becomes strategic when it changes decisions early, reduces risk, improves readiness, and shapes the conditions for winning. That requires literacy, but it also requires designers to show up where strategy is formed, not only where delivery happens.

The shift from cost center to strategic asset is not a rebrand. It is a practice. And according to Paul Strike and Falguni Desai, it is built through framing, translation, and coalitions that make design indispensable long before anyone asks for the mockup.

Want to watch the full talk?

You can find it here on UXDX: https://uxdx.com/session/from-cost-center-to-strategic-asset-redefining-the-role-of-design1/

Or explore all the insights in the UXDX USA 2025 Post Show Report: https://uxdx.com/post-show-report