Design Fox -
Founder & Design Consultant

March 2024 - Present

With 20 years of experience in UX and product design, 10 in design leadership, I’ve decided to move back into providing actual design to global customers. More details on this soon.

Amazon -
Design Manager III

May 2022 - March 2024

I was a senior manager for three design teams spread across multiple cloud architecture microservices at Amazon Web Services (AWS). I led strategy and operational planning, helped the designers move from early ideation and discovery through delivery with cross-functional teams following Amazon’s “Working Backwards” model. I promoted adherence and contribution to the Cloudscape design system, ensuring whatever we design is tied to customer need. I developed new workshop models, improved ways of working, and provided UX direction even outside my teams.

Oracle -
Sr. Product Design Manager

Jan 2021 - May 2022

I led a global UX team spanning North America, Europe and South America. We focused on next generation software development for Oracle NetSuite, built upon discovery, ideation, prototyping, and delivery. Everything we did was based on a solid Design Thinking framework and a world renowned design system. We worked fully remotely with staff in Spain, UK, Uruguay, Canada, Czech Republic, and US.

Aetna Health -
Sr. Design Manager

Oct 2019 - Jan 2021

Leadership for a large UX/UI team of product design, user research and content professionals. My focus was on leading a Covid-19 (coronavirus) digital response team. We helped medical patients find doctors, hospitals, and testing facilities, tracking millions of people using our online scheduling for Covid testing within the first couple months of the pandemic. We saw a 14% increase in members using telehealth and 18% increase from providers between late 2019 to late 2020. We also focused on transparent cost, co-pay and similar estimates to help patients better understand expected pricing.

At the enterprise level, I focused on design leadership covering:

• MVP and ideal state, full stack product design approach

• Design thinking workshops including Design Sprints

• Developer / Engineer focused design support

• Visual design focus on Typography and color theory

• Low fidelity functionality UX solutions

• Research based design decisions

• User story mapping, journey maps, affinity maps, personas, and archetypes

• Within one year, an increase in App Store ratings from Apple App Store 4.5 to 4.6 and Google Play 3.0 to 3.8

• Rapid prototyping mixed with high fidelity user testing

• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and all things agile

MapVida

2014 - 2017

Director of UX

Jan 2014 – Jan 2017

UX direction and branding art director for patented iOS mapping and real estate app, awarded 2017 Big50 Startup

Managed design and development team to identify solutions for complicated interactions involving Venn diagrams and differing map overlays for common consumer. Through problem-solving and flexibility, successfully moved through rigorous ideation phases into design and testing phases

Pinatubo Creative

2009 - 2011

Senior Interaction Designer

May 2009 – Apr 2011

Delivered creative direction for 5-person team of designers and developers, nominated for Westword’s “Best of Web” in 2013.

Improved branding efforts for clients such as Harvard University, Alloy Media, House of Blues, and HSBC through effective marketing and research strategies, delivering in both print and digital.

Duo Consulting

2008 - 2009

Interaction Designer

Jan 2008 – Oct 2009

Led design on 4 open source CMS web applications, specializing in accessibility, usability analysis, UX and UI, online branding, pitches, and client tutorial

Delivered interaction design as tasked with projects ranging from user experience tasks like wireframing, user flows, user research and prototyping to finalized visual designs and testing. Included front-end coding support in HTML, CSS and jQuery

Northwestern University

Medill Graduate School of Journalism

2006 - 2007

Design Instructor

Jan 2006 – May 2009

Delivered graduate level coursework as Adjunct Lecturer and Web Instructor for Medill School of Journalism, focusing on web semantics, usability, accessibility, and custom application design.

Collaborated and created partnerships with 20-30 faculty members and graduate students, and two other major universities including Harvard, to work closely on Medill School of Journalism capstone projects.

Wohl & Company

2004 - 2006

Art Director

Oct 2004 – Aug 2006

Generated art direction for print and web, as well as environmental design and installation projects. Clients included Ritz–Carlton, Auburn University, Harris Casino, Penguin Publishing and several James Beard award-winning restaurants