Our Story

Born in El Salvador.
Raised in Guatemala.
Forged at Fortune 500.

Act 1 · Origin
From Guatemala
to the design table.

Sara was born in El Salvador and raised in Guatemala before coming to the United States. That duality became her superpower. Natively bilingual, bicultural, and trained in both the analytical rigor of US corporate culture and the creative warmth of Latin American collaboration.

20+ years
From freelance to
Fortune 500.

Sara started building brands and websites for clients across the Americas — from Pristine Bay Resort in Honduras to Paseo Cayalá in Guatemala to Black & Decker in Miami. At MovieTickets.com, she worked alongside studios like Lucasfilm and Warner Bros. — an experience that taught her to refine her craft and hold herself to the highest standards. After CBS Interactive and freelance branding for clients like Hasbro, she joined Cisco, where she spent 14 years shaping the experience for Learn with Cisco, Cisco U, Collaborative Knowledge, and the Cisco Digital Library.

Act 2 · Insight
The moment everything
clicked.

At Cisco, Sara led cross-functional workshops across Sales, Marketing, Engineering, UX Research, Design, and Product Management. She mentored junior designers, trained facilitators, and implemented design sprints adapted to the organization. Then came Cisco Connect LatAm in Cancún — facilitating for over 100 partners from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, and across Latin America. They didn't want English facilitation. They wanted someone who understood how they think, not just what they say.

The real barrier
Not language.
Not tools.
Alignment.

When a Latin American team says "sí" in a meeting, do you know whether they mean "yes, I agree," "yes, I heard you," or "yes, but I disagree and won't say so in front of others"? AI can translate words. Only a bilingual, bicultural facilitator can translate meaning.

Act 3 · Mission
AI handles velocity.
Humans handle direction.

Now, Sara is dedicated to helping teams navigate the AI-enhanced UX process — where AI tools supercharge every phase of the design process while making the human-judgment moments more critical, not less. The facilitator's role shifts from process manager to alignment architect.

Real Lab Studio
Facilitation creates
alignment.

Two markets. Two languages. One truth. The faster you can build, the more expensive it becomes to build the wrong thing.

Bilingual Advantage

"I don't just translate words between English and Spanish — I translate ideas, business cultures, and innovation methodologies. AI can't do that yet."

Sara · Founder, Real Lab Studio
Sara Martinez Sosnowski
La ventaja bicultural

"AI acelera la ejecución. La facilitación humana asegura la dirección. Diseñamos el proceso que conecta velocidad con propósito."

Sara · Fundadora, Real Lab Studio
Experience

The work behind
the work.

2010 — Present
Cisco
Senior UX Designer · 14 years shaping Learn with Cisco, Cisco U, Collaborative Knowledge, and Cisco Digital Library. Three platform redesigns. Created the design library. Mentored junior designers. Trained design thinking facilitators. Led cross-functional workshops across Sales, Marketing, Engineering, UX Research, Design, and Product Management.
2008 — 2010
CBS Interactive
UX Designer · Interactive design for CBS Interactive. At MovieTickets.com, worked alongside Lucasfilm and Warner Bros., learning to deliver at the highest creative standards.
Early Career
Freelance & Branding
Built brands and websites across the Americas — Pristine Bay Resort (Honduras), Estudio Urbano / Paseo Cayalá (Guatemala), Black & Decker (Miami), Camino Real (Guatemala), Flavie Furst Jewelry, Crepes by the Sea, and more. Also freelanced for Hasbro on web design projects.
Community
Design Leadership
Founder, Design Thinkers of RTP (740+ members). IxDF Chapter Lead, Raleigh NC. Active member & volunteer: AIGA, Creative Mornings, Cisco Conexión. Design Thinking Champion Award recipient.
Workshops
Facilitation
TEC Guatemala · Universidad Francisco Marroquín (150 students) · Antigua Impact Hub · PWC (Pakistani Women in Computing) · UX Y'all Conference (100 participants) · Cisco Connect LatAm (100+ partners) · Cisco Live Las Vegas · Retail X Masterclass (subject matter expert).
Cisco Highlight
Story Pages
Created the Story Pages for Learn with Cisco — interviewing certified engineers and designing their inspiration stories. Used the full design thinking process: interviews, user journeys, empathy mapping, 2×2 matrix, sketching. The project became a model for human-centered design at Cisco.
AI-Enhanced Process

The AI tool landscape
is vast. We curate
what matters.

I use AI tools across all four phases — from Claude Deep Research for landscape scanning to v0 for rapid prototyping to Maze for AI-assisted testing. Every AI output is filtered through human judgment, cultural fluency, and the question that matters most: are we solving the right problem?

Claude / Perplexity
Research synthesis and landscape scanning
Dovetail AI / Miro AI
AI-accelerated synthesis and affinity mapping
v0 / Cursor / Figma AI
Rapid prototyping from concept to functional UI
Maze / Midjourney
AI-assisted testing and concept visualization
"AI handles velocity. Humans handle direction. Facilitation creates alignment."
740+
Community members in Design Thinkers of RTP
14
Years at Cisco — three platform redesigns, design library creator, facilitator trainer
20+
Years of UX, branding, and product design across the Americas
2
Languages delivered natively — English and Spanish