Leah McDougald joins ZoCo Design as Managing Director, accelerating Ohio’s role in healthcare UX innovation

Leah McDougald (L) and Lacey Picazo (R), CEO of ZoCo at the company’s HQ in Columbus

In a significant milestone for Ohio’s healthcare and technology sectors, ZoCo Design has expanded its leadership team with the appointment of Leah McDougald, Founder and former CEO of McDougald Research, as Managing Director. With over two decades of experience in UX research, strategy, and healthtech innovation, McDougald’s addition strengthens ZoCo’s ability to deliver performance-driven design and research services that address the increasingly complex demands of the healthcare space.

This leadership expansion positions ZoCo to further elevate its impact as a national player in healthtech, while deepening its roots in Ohio’s rapidly growing digital health ecosystem.

The Next Chapter for a Columbus Powerhouse

ZoCo Design has been a cornerstone of Columbus’s tech and design landscape, supporting organizations across industries with high-impact user experience (UX) services. As of late 2024, the company narrowed its focus to concentrate on healthcare and healthtech, a deliberate move in response to growing market demand and its own strength in solving complex, human-centered challenges.

With the addition of McDougald, ZoCo enhances its ability to guide clients through upstream strategy, downstream execution, and long-term scalability. Her unique perspective enables the development of adaptable, inclusive, and outcomes-driven healthcare solutions.

Her leadership builds upon ZoCo’s existing capabilities and sets the stage for continued growth in UX design, product research, and go-to-market strategy, particularly in the health and medical technology space.

Transforming Healthcare Through Human-Centered Design

Healthcare continues to be one of the most challenging industries for user experience, marked by outdated systems, disjointed workflows, and high-stakes environments. ZoCo’s sharpened focus on healthcare addresses this gap head-on. By applying deep user research and evidence-based design, the company helps healthcare organizations create solutions that are easier to use, more efficient, and built for long-term adoption.

ZoCo’s approach is rooted in understanding real human needs, not just technical requirements, to build digital tools that serve patients, clinicians, and healthcare staff alike.

With McDougald’s leadership, ZoCo is now even better equipped to reduce friction in product development, improve outcomes through smarter design, and support healthcare leaders in placing more confident bets on the future of their digital products.

What It Means for Ohio

ZoCo’s growing influence represents more than company growth. It reflects Ohio’s evolution as a center for healthcare and technology innovation. As the company scales its team and capabilities, Ohio-based startups, health systems, and enterprise tech organizations gain greater access to world-class UX design and research talent — right here in the region.

Through invite-only Product Invitational roundtables already launched in Columbus, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Chicago, with expansion underway in cities like New York and Boston, ZoCo continues to cultivate community among product leaders and technologists. These events provide insight into the real-world challenges facing healthcare innovation and position an Ohio-based company as a hub for collaboration, strategy, and breakthrough solutions.

By combining operational experience with product innovation, ZoCo is enabling Ohio organizations to compete confidently on the national and global stage — and is setting a new standard for what user-centered healthcare technology can achieve.

Moving Forward

Leah McDougald’s appointment as Managing Director reinforces ZoCo’s long-term commitment to creating clarity in complexity. The company’s approach, rooted in research, design, and strategic foresight, allows its clients to move with speed and certainty in environments that are constantly evolving.

With an expanded leadership team and a clear focus on healthcare, ZoCo is not just keeping pace with the future of UX — it’s shaping it.