Primary Recent Experience: 2011 - Present
Modus Create
Head of Customer Experience and Design 2019 - Present
I've recently joined Modus Create as the head of customer experience and design, where I lead, grow, and scale the offerings and engagements of our design practice. In short, I wanted to give client services a shot after almost 7 years in-house and almost a year as an an independent contributor in an evangelist & thought leader role.
Accomplishments in first 6 months:
- Defined the customer experience practice to focus on the following disciplines:
- Product design
- Design systems
- DesignOps consulting
- Design research
- Elevating design and product development maturity
- Grew the design practice by 30% by hiring a diverse group of senior UX practitioners and early-career designers
- Advocated and closed a design system consulting partnership with InVision (Modus announcement | InVision partner page)
- Closed new business in excess of $100k in first 6 months
- Grew existing accounts by advising the value of effective design research's impact on product development
- Promote and evangelize Modus at industry and community events via sponsorship, speaking, and hosting activities to grow the awareness of Modus offerings and opportunities.
InVision
Principal, Design Transformation 2018 - 2019
I work directly with InVision clients to level up their design practice and help their larger business understands the value of design, often through a variety of methods including customized, inclusive presentations and workshops for audiences across the organization.
Generally speaking, to lead our clients and InVision to success, I was responsible for:
- Leading the strategy, approach, and content for the InVision design maturity assessment model to lead conversations with design executives to identify where to focus recommendations for improvement
- Serving as the expert in how design practices are scaled beyond design departments at the world’s most customer-centric organizations
- Crafting individualized improvement programs to evangelize design-led best practices to executive stakeholders
- Regularly attend in-person prospect and customer visits, leading senior level conversations on digital transformation and design best practices
- Coordinate with Design Education and Design Specialist teams to deliver high-touch programs for our most strategic accounts
Nasdaq, Inc.
Global Head of Design and User Experience 2011 - 2018
- General manager of a $4MM product design & user experience team that serves 5 business units across the global stock exchange and fintech leader
- Instituted all product design processes, including customer research, lean UX & agile principles, designers prototyping in HTML, CSS, and JS, iterative customer feedback via usability testing and beta programs, and analytics to guide future development
Managing Designers
- Directly manage, coach, and mentor design leadership team, including Director of User Experience, Creative Director, Director of Design Research & Customer Insights, & Director of Mobile Design
- Scaled a team from 1 to 30 in 4 years through direct recruiting efforts, saving over 200k annually in recruiter & placement fees and improving overall hiring quality
Leading Digital Transformation via Design
- Regularly present strategic design initiatives to executive management and officers, including CEO, CFO, and Board of Directors
- Executive producer of Nasdaq Pro/Design Conference (NYC 2015) and 2 Pro/Design Masterclasses (SF 2016) to showcase compelling speakers exploring how design and research are critical to business strategy
- Created a cross-business customer advisory board of clients and users to help sales, service, commercial teams, and design better understand our users & buyers
Leading Innovation
- Designers on my team are cited as inventor in 32 patents (16 pending) as of 2017
- Launched Nasdaq Mosaiq, a design research asset management system now available as a free download for agencies, start-ups, and enterprises
- Led multiple cross-team innovation workshops & sprint teams to explore latent, unmet customer needs and evaluate new business opportunities across silos
Awards and Recognition
- Invited into and successfully completed the Nasdaq Emerging Leader Program, a 6 month cross-company leadership development training & coaching program with a practical challenge: investigate how to scale Nasdaq's machine learning and artificial intelligence efforts across the company for compounded returns
- IR Insight awarded 2 STEVIE Awards in Data Visualization (Silver) and Business Intelligence (Gold) in 2017
- Promoted from Managing Director to Associate Vice President in 2014
- Awarded “Most Effective In-House Team” by UX Week in 2013
