Thrive Dept. | Transition Coaching for Professionals

The work gets harder as the organization gets more complex.

At a certain point, improving the experience is no longer primarily a design challenge.

Teams are distributed across functions. Research and insights are disconnected from decisions. Design and engineering operate with competing priorities. Roles and decision rights are unclear. The organization has grown, reorganized, or changed faster than its ways of working.

The question becomes less “How do we improve the design?” and more “How do we make the system around experience work better?”

That is where I work.

Experience strategy. Organizational clarity. Practical change.

I advise senior leaders and organizations working through consequential UX and CX challenges.

My work can include:

UX/CX operating models
Clarifying structure, roles, governance, and ways of working.

Research integration
Connecting customer insight more directly to product, portfolio, and business decisions.

Cross-functional alignment
Creating clearer working relationships around priorities, ownership, standards, and execution.

Experience organization and capability
Assessing team structure, maturity, leadership needs, capabilities, and opportunities to scale.

Design system governance
Strengthening the organizational conditions around governance, adoption, design/engineering/marketing partnership, vendor coordination, and SDLC integration.

Transformation and leadership advisory
Providing experienced perspective when organizations are changing and the path forward is not yet obvious.

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Senior experience for problems without a simple playbook.

I have spent more than 20 years working across UX, CX, research, strategy, innovation, technology, and organizational transformation.

Along the way, I have:

Built and led a multidisciplinary CX organization of roughly 50 people, including five Senior Manager direct reports
Led UX Research, Design Strategy, Experience Design, Innovation, Design Operations, and Voice of Customer
Shaped experience strategy across an estimated $200M technology portfolio
Built and scaled distributed experience practices across the United States, Serbia, and India
Worked across Product, Engineering, Technology, Operations, Marketing, Analytics, Strategy, Sales, and executive leadership
Helped translate customer and operational evidence into roadmaps, investment decisions, organizational priorities, and executive strategy

My experience spans enterprise transformation, organizational growth and integration, B2B and consumer digital commerce, healthcare, and complex technology environments.

The common thread has been helping organizations make experience work better at the level of the system, not just the interface.

How we might work together.

Not every organizational problem needs another permanent role or a large consulting team.

Sometimes what is needed is an experienced outside perspective, focused leadership, or additional capacity at an important moment.

Thrive Department supports organizations through:

Senior advisory
Focused thought partnership around complex organizational, experience, and leadership decisions.

Strategic consulting
Clearly scoped work to diagnose a problem, establish direction, or strengthen an experience capability.

Fractional or interim leadership
Senior experience leadership during periods of transition, growth, restructuring, or capability development.

Transformation initiatives
Hands-on leadership and advisory support for organizational changes that cross teams, disciplines, or functions.

Engagements are shaped around the problem rather than forced into a predetermined package.

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About Stephanie.

I’m Stephanie Sansoucie, founder of Thrive Department.

Before starting my own practice, I spent more than two decades working inside complex organizations where customer and user experience depended on much more than good design.

I have led large multidisciplinary teams, built experience capabilities, worked across global organizations, partnered with senior Product and Technology leaders, and helped organizations navigate growth, transformation, and changing ways of working.

That experience shapes how I advise today.

I am comfortable entering situations where the answer is not obvious, the organizational context matters as much as the technical solution, and progress requires bringing multiple perspectives together.

My role is not to arrive with a generic transformation playbook. It is to help leaders see the system clearly, make better choices, and build an approach that can actually work inside their organization.

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Design Leadership & Transition Coaching

I also maintain a small private coaching practice for experienced design professionals and leaders navigating meaningful change.

Coaching is distinct from my advisory work. It is a reflective, client-led space for people working through expanded responsibility, professional transition, communication challenges, identity shifts, or consequential decisions.

The work is designed to strengthen clarity, judgment, and self-trust rather than prescribe a particular answer.

I am a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach with formal training in coaching psychology, behavior change, and lifestyle medicine.

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Start with the problem.

If your organization is working through a consequential UX, CX, or experience-organization challenge, we can start with a conversation about what is happening, what is getting in the way, and whether I can be useful.

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