I’m Mariesa Lenz, and Ideālis is me.
After fifteen years leading product and design inside startups and tech companies, Ideālis is where I do that work directly, for you.
Not a studio that assembles a team around you, one person who can run the whole 0-to-1 loop: discovery, design, and the actual build. I help early-stage teams turn ambiguous, important ideas into working products and real user signal, fast.
Most people who do this work do one slice of it. They research, or they design, or they build. I do all three, which is what lets me move quickly and skip the handoffs where clarity usually gets lost. I move fluidly between product, engineering, and design, bringing structure to complexity, finding the signal in the noise, and building toward what’s next. I’m especially drawn to mission-driven teams solving hard, high-context problems with curiosity, integrity, and heart.
I’ve spent more than fifteen years leading product and design and, increasingly, building with AI directly rather than handing off specs. That combination, senior design judgment plus hands-on technical range, is the thing early-stage teams can almost never find in a single person.
What I’ve built:
🤖
Most recently led design and growth at an early-stage AI company, where I designed and shipped AI products hands-on, including a semantic search tool built on the 12Labs and OpenAI APIs.
📉
Partnered with stealth-stage startups to validate proof-of-concept products across security, AI, and climate, leveraging cutting-edge technologies and innovative methodologies.
🌞
As a senior design leader in climate tech, I successfully scaled core product lines to more than $4M in ARR, demonstrating a deep understanding of market needs and customer preferences.
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Earlier: founding Product Designer at Pivotal Labs, Design Manager at Mailchimp, and nearly two decades of front-end development throughout.
“Mariesa is the best manager I have ever had…
I came to her at a stage of my career where I wanted to advance to a senior title but didn’t know how to get there. Over the 2.5 years I reported to her, we worked together to get that promotion, building up my skills and filling in the gaps to make sure I was ready.
Mariesa is the kind of leader who challenges and encourages people to reach their full potential in a way that has a long-term impact, long past when they report to her. When I look at my career today, I can’t help but attribute much of the path I forged to the conversations we had back then. If you want to bring in a design leader who will inspire your team to do their best work and love their jobs, Mariesa is who you want.”
— Shauna Keating, direct report from 2000-2022 @ Truss.works
Awards & speaking experience
JULY 2019
UXPA International
Speaker & Workshop Facilitator
Developed & executed a workshop navigating through two of the five exercises in the, “The Design Ethics Toolkit”, frameworks created for teams considering the outcomes of the products they create.
https://github.com/MKDale/ethics-frameworks
JULY 2018
DC Tech Stories Podcast
Guest Panelist
Four panelists walk through how they think of design systems, some pros and cons, and how their companies put them into practice.
http://dctechstories.com/
APRIL 2018
CF Summit Boston
Guest Panelist, Tech Ethics: Putting People Ahead of Technology
Four panelists discuss the ethical oath we need to take, the origins of the Hippocratic Oath for Technologists written by M.Dale, and the steps that must be taken to drive ourselves down a more ethical path.
Link to the event
MARCH 2018
Authored and published: “The Technologist’s Hippocratic Oath”
An optional oath for building ethically considered experiences. Originally published to Pivotal Lab’s public facing blog, “Built to Adapt”,
https://builttoadapt.io/technologists-hippocratic-oath-94b88d3fe480
SEPTEMBER 2016
Powerful Women Designers Award Recipient, DCFem Tech
DCFemTech is a coalition of women leaders aimed at amplifying the efforts of women in tech organizations, sharing resources, and bringing leaders together to close the gender gap. Membership is inclusive and open to any women in tech leaders. Members are affiliated with organizations with women attendance that is 50% or higher; who have a focus on technology; and have a primary focus in the mission statement about diversity.
https://dcfemtech.github.io/
A little more about me
I work at the intersection of design, science, and art. My education began in design, took a detour through a year in Europe and a switch to fine arts (encaustic painting and photography), and eventually led me back to building products. I started my first consultancy around the 2009 crash while caring for a newborn, and grew it from local work to clients well beyond what I expected. Since then I’ve designed and built across startups and larger tech companies, always drawn to the ambiguous, early, high-stakes end of the work.
Outside of work, I paint the natural world and grow dahlias, usually with a few small visitors stopping by. You can see more of my artwork at Mariesa.me.
Have a hard problem you want built and validated, not just advised on?
Subscribe to my newsletter ‘Wild Enough’ on Substack.
I write regularly on product, creativity, and the practice of paying attention. Wild Enough is where I give myself (and you) permission to be a little unruly in a world of systems and metrics.
Idealis 