---
title: Alex Lockwood | Product Design Management at Kroger
description: Kroger Product Design Management Case Study: Alex Lockwood's design team leadership and management strategy. Building foundational design practices at scale.
url: https://71dpi.github.io/projects/k-foundational-design-team-mgmt.html
author: Alex Lockwood
---

# Leading Kroger's Foundational Product Design Team Through Transformation

**TL;DR**

###### Alex managed Kroger's Foundational Design Team through a strategic expansion, from systems architecture to growth-focused point solutions. The hybrid, multidisciplinary team improved personalization, trust, search relevance, and assortment availability while protecting revenue drivers and scaling design delivery.

## Overview

I managed Kroger's Foundational Design Team, a hybrid, multidisciplinary group of design architects, user researchers, UX and product designers, plus remote and contractor contributors. That mix let us build system-level foundations and still deliver point solutions that drove growth.

## Why “Foundational Design”?

The team owned the core domains behind digital commerce: assortment and strategy, trust and privacy, personalization, and search. They're what let Kroger reliably show products and let customers shop across touchpoints.

Assortment and strategy keep the right products and categories available and discoverable. Trust and privacy build confidence in data security and transparency. Personalization tailors experiences to drive engagement and conversion. Search powers discovery and navigation, and it's the front door for a lot of shoppers.

## Team Composition & Hybrid Model

Design architects shaped system frameworks and principles. User researchers drove insights through usability testing and JTBD mapping. UX and product designers turned strategy into experiences that scale. The hybrid model let us tap global talent, move fast remotely, and get together in person for high-impact work.

## Strategic Expansion

We grew from foundational architecture into point solutions that directly influenced product roadmaps and growth metrics. We improved personalization, trust, and availability, and lifted add-to-cart (ATC) and engagement through search and curated pathways.

## Key Initiatives

#### 1. Foundational Change

We reimagined patterns and layouts across Home, Search, and Browse, prototyped conversational AI search, and built lighthouse prototypes that combined trust, personalization, and assortment filtering.

#### 2. Agentic Shopping

I led explorations into agentic commerce, separating conversational AI from embedded agent flows. They enable automated cart-building around dietary and budget constraints, and tie in real-time inventory and loyalty personalization.

#### 3. Full App Redesign

We contributed to Kroger's native app refresh: a food-first experience, simplified navigation, centralized savings and health integrations, and a scalable design system (Citrus/KDS 2.0) for component-based experiences.

## Maintaining Revenue Drivers

While the product evolved, we protected major revenue channels by optimizing search relevance and running personalization experiments that improved ATC and engagement.

## Impact

We delivered measurable CX and engagement improvements, put Kroger early in agentic shopping and omnichannel design, and built a resilient team that can execute at scale and adapt to new technology.

### Initiative Responsibilities

- Team Leadership & Talent Development

- Design Strategy & Systems Architecture

- Research Oversight & JTBD Mapping

- Cross-Functional Governance

- Roadmap Influence & Experimentation

### Product Technologies & Skills

- Conversational AI Prototyping

- Personalization & Experimentation Platforms

- User Research & JTBD

- Prototyping (Figma)

- Stakeholder Management & Governance

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HTML version: https://71dpi.github.io/projects/k-foundational-design-team-mgmt.html