Hey, I'm Chandra Ananthuni (Ananth), a CX Leader with 20+ years of experience designing and scaling digital experiences that connect customer needs with business outcomes.
For the past 6 years, I've led UX for eBay's Global Help & Customer Service, shaping the experience for one of the world's largest customer support ecosystems.
My work has supported a platform serving 136 million active buyers, 18 million sellers, 2.3+ billion live listings, and 700+ million monthly visits. Improving the Self-Service resolution rate from 68% to 82% and achieving an above 88% containment rate through IVR.
More recently, I've been driving the adoption of AI-powered and agentic experiences, helping redefine how customers discover information, resolve issues, and interact with intelligent support systems.
Throughout my career, I've partnered with product, engineering, data science, and business leaders (BXT) to transform complex challenges into intuitive, scalable experiences. I believe great design is built on a deep understanding of users, thoughtful collaboration, and a relentless focus on measurable impact (Empathy Design & Double Diamond).
Beyond designing products, I enjoy building design culture—leading global initiatives, mentoring distributed teams, and influencing product strategy across multicultural markets, including the US, UK, Germany, and APAC. Whether defining long-term vision or refining the smallest interaction, I'm passionate about creating experiences that are simple, accessible, and genuinely valuable for millions of people.
eBay Help & Customer Service Vision
Designing personalized, accessible, and seamless self-service experiences that empower customers across every device, platform, and touchpoint—whenever, wherever, and however they need support.
Customer Research
User research revealed that most first-time customers and more than 30% of returning customers actively look for access to Help before completing a purchase. Their decision is largely influenced by the confidence that they can easily resolve issues later—particularly around returns, refunds, and other post-purchase needs. This insight reinforced the importance of making Help discoverable, trustworthy, and seamlessly integrated throughout the entire customer journey, from pre-purchase to post-purchase.
Help Strategy & Products
In-Flow Help — Deliver contextual support exactly where customers need it, enabling them to resolve issues without leaving their current task or disrupting their journey.
Help Hub — A centralized destination where customers can learn, find answers, track support cases, and access the resources they need to succeed on the platform.
Social — Extend the support experience to social platforms, meeting customers where they seek inspiration, build trust, and make buying and selling decisions.
Teammate Tools
We reimagined the teammate experience by simplifying the interface and leveraging Agentic AI to guide and automate complex workflows. Instead of requiring teammates to memorize processes, the AI agent understood the context, recommended the next best actions, and autonomously completed multi-step tasks where appropriate. This significantly reduced training effort, accelerated issue resolution, and enabled teammates to focus on delivering better customer experiences rather than navigating complex tools.
Design System
As part of leading the Self-Service experience, I helped drive the evolution of our design system to improve consistency, scalability, and component reusability across products and platforms. Working closely with cross-functional teams, we established and refined design standards that balanced evolving business priorities with user needs while ensuring compliance with accessibility (ADA/WCAG) and modern web standards.
This foundation enabled teams to deliver faster, create more cohesive user experiences, and maintain a high level of quality across the customer journey.
Awards - eBay Invent Week
Hello eBay, AI assistant — Designed a conversational AI experience that empowers sellers throughout the listing process. Beyond generating item descriptions, the assistant educates users on current market trends, pricing recommendations, and best practices, helping them create optimized listings, make informed selling decisions, and get to market faster.
Glance – Smart Seller Dashboard — Led the design of an intelligent seller dashboard that consolidates sales insights, buyer issues, orders, and recommended actions into a single, actionable view. Rather than switching between multiple tools and workflows, sellers receive proactive insights, prioritize critical tasks, and resolve buyer issues in just a few clicks.
The experience streamlines complex seller workflows, reduces effort, improves issue resolution, and helps sellers stay organized while confidently managing their business from anywhere.
eBay Voice Assistant — People's Choice Award, eBay Invent Week
Designed a voice-first AI assistant that enables buyers and sellers to complete everyday tasks hands-free through voice commands across IoT devices.
For sellers, the assistant streamlines actions such as relisting items, responding to buyer messages, managing listings, and tracking sales. For buyers, it provides instant access to order tracking, listing details, product compatibility and fit information, personalized recommendations, and answers to questions before and after purchase.
By bringing eBay experiences to voice-enabled devices, the assistant reduces friction, improves accessibility, and enables customers to interact with the marketplace naturally—wherever they are and whenever they need assistance.
Certifications
Design Leadership, Managing Creatives, Design Management, Strategic Thinking, UX Design, Art Direction, Visual Communication
Education
Master of Business Administration (2007-09)
Bachelor of Fine Arts - Applied Arts (2001-06)
My Art & Design Journey
With over 24 years of professional experience in art, design, and creative leadership, my career has evolved across advertising, digital products, customer experience, and UX leadership. From working in leading creative agencies to shaping AI-powered experiences for global technology companies, I've always been driven by a passion for solving problems through design.
I began my career in renowned advertising agencies, including RK Swamy BBDO and Rediffusion DY&R, where I built a strong foundation in visual communication, branding, storytelling, and customer-centric thinking. I later expanded into digital product design and enterprise experiences at Cognizant Technology Solutions, before leading large-scale UX initiatives for global brands such as PayPal and eBay.
Over the years, I've grown through roles including Graphic Designer, Visual Designer, Design Producer, UX Designer, Design Manager, Media Producer & Director, giving me a multidisciplinary perspective that spans strategy, execution, leadership, and innovation. I enjoy wearing multiple hats when needed and believe that no task is too small or too big—doing what's right for the customer, the product, and the team is always my priority.
I've had the privilege of designing for and collaborating with global brands including Coca-Cola, Airtel, LexisNexis, PayPal, and eBay, creating experiences that serve millions of customers while balancing business goals with human-centered design.
Beyond UX and customer experience, I'm a lifelong artist and storyteller. I've produced and directed films and music projects, and I'm also a professional fine artist whose work has been curated and exhibited, including at WE-Hub India. These creative pursuits continue to influence my approach to design, bringing together artistic expression, systems thinking, and empathy to create experiences that are both functional and meaningful. View all my Art Projects