My Resume

 

 

Results-Oriented User Experience and Product Leader
 
Results-oriented leader with extensive experience guiding global teams of product managers, product owners, UX designers, and program managers. Leveraging design thinking, empathy, and data-driven insights, successful product decisions consistently achieve corporate-level OKRs. Leadership style fosters an agile environment where innovation and execution thrive.

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Work Experience
 
FOUNDATION MEDICINE, Boston, MA 09/2021 – 06/2024
 
Director of User Experience
Built and led a 15-person UX team at Foundation Medicine, a leader in precision cancer care. Focused on user research to drive user-centric design and streamlined UX across the platform. Presented UX insights to executives and impacted business strategy for personalized cancer treatment.

• Streamlined operations: Reduced accessioning time for commercial and biopharma clients by 34% by consolidating thirteen legacy applications into a next-generation platform. After integrating OCR, an additional 60% efficiency gain was achieved.

• Digital sales growth: Owned an Executive OKR, driving digital online orders from 60% to 75% (reaching target). Drove new digital sales opportunities, data-driven product features for improved ROI, and comprehensive playbooks for sales and marketing teams to maximize digital effectiveness.

• Strategic roadmap: Spearheaded a corporate roadmap and strategy with product marketing based on ethnographic research. The research shaped the next generation of ordering, clinical decision-making tools, innovation projects, and clinical workflows.

• Product innovation: Led modified design sprints to accelerate product strategy, fostering cross-functional collaboration and enabling early validation before resource allocation – this optimized product delivery capacity.

• Empowered teams: Reduced FTE headcount by 40% through a self-service research and usability platform and equipped various teams to conduct user testing and product validation.

• Hackathon leader: Led a corporate-wide hackathon leveraging design thinking, subject matter expertise, and Agile methodologies, fostering innovation and accelerating new features and products' time to market.

 
CVS HEALTH, Boston, MA 06/2019 – 08/2021

Director of User Experience
Built and led a high-performing team of 58 UX professionals (designers, researchers, etc.) at Aetna Health. This team, in partnership with executives, directly interfaced with the customer advisory board. The collaboration resulted in programs and services empowering customers to control healthcare costs while improving quality. The focus was on creating tools and information for informed healthcare and financial decisions.

• Agile transformation lead: Led the design team integration into Aetna's SAFe Agile Framework. Implemented Scrumban, best practices, coaching, and training, resulting in a 40% increase in design team efficiency (maximized product impact and minimized development time and cost) across four Agile release trains.

• Design team growth and mentorship: Managed and mentored a rapidly growing design team (58 designers of various specialties) supporting 13 Scrum teams across the Aetna Health portfolio. Grew the design team by 50% in under a year to support rapid growth.

• Agile solution layer architect: Owned the strategic direction for the Agile Solution Layer, collaborating with senior leadership (Aetna Cloud, CVS Health platforms, and external partners) to drive alignment.

• COVID-19 response leader: Led digital task forces to enhance patient care access, facilitating COVID-19 testing and supporting vaccination efforts within Aetna products.

• Customer experience champion: Championed user-centered design by developing programs and processes around design thinking, design sprints, and member and customer engagement. Partnered with product management on impactful initiatives.

• Design partnership program: Through customer data and analytics, formed a design partnership program to inform strategic direction early on and validate designs.

 
IMPRIVATA, Waltham, MA 04/2018 – 06/2019
 
Director of User Experience
Managed a global team of ten UX designers, information architects, and visual designers. Directed solutions for complex access management challenges in healthcare and critical industries. This ensured Imprivata's offerings addressed unique security and compliance needs. In addition to product leadership and membership on the product council, co-led the Women in Technology group, fostering a culture of inclusion.

• Led and mentored design team: Led a high-performing design team of ten visual designers and UX professionals across the U.S. and Ukraine, supporting fourteen Scrum teams.

• Streamlined design process: Reduced design delays and lowered development expenditures through a new design methodology and UI kit.

• Women in Technology group leader: Chaired Imprivata's Women in Technology group, mentoring and coaching the next generation of product, engineering, quality assurance, and design professionals.

• Product council member: Actively contributed as a member of the product council, overseeing product flow through development and making critical decisions.

 
NEWFORMA, Boston, MA 09/2015 – 08/2017

Vice President of Product Management
Spearheaded the cloud migration of Newforma's flagship Project Center PIM solution, including the go-to-market strategy, design overhaul, and mobile app launch for iOS and Android. Led a team of 15 product managers and UX designers to redesign and validate a market-tested solution for improved communication, collaboration, workflows, and document control for US and international users.

• Led global product management: Managed and directed a globally distributed team of 15 product managers, product owners, UX designers, and program managers for Newforma's product line.

• Cloud migration champion: Planned and successfully migrated Newforma's on-premises product to a cloud-based solution within nine months.

• Agile transformation leader: Transformed the company from Waterfall to Agile and Kanban by mentoring and hiring staff, all while establishing a robust requirements pipeline to meet the demands of in-house and outsourced development teams.

• Customer-centric development: Instituted Newforma's Early Adopter Program and Customer Advisory Board, ensuring customer feedback informed product roadmap decisions.

• Agile design and user research: Led the implementation of a successful Agile design methodology utilizing design thinking, user research (ethnographic research, user groups, and usability testing), and rapid iteration. This approach mapped customer needs to feasible and viable solutions while managing a global UX team of seven designers.

• Product go-to-market and customer success: Led the launch of new products with successful strategies.

DYNATRACE, Boston, MA 03/2012 – 09/2015

Director of User Experience
Led a global design team of 15 across the US, Europe, and China to unify acquired companies into a single intelligence platform. This platform empowered organizations to monitor, optimize, and manage the performance of their entire technology infrastructure.

• Championed user-centric design: Led a comprehensive user research program (ethnographic studies, A/B testing, and usability testing) that streamlined the Dynatrace product line, enhancing user experience and satisfaction.

• Mobile innovation spearhead: Launched the company's first native mobile applications for iOS and Android, securing necessary resources and fostering cross-functional collaboration. This empowered users with on-the-go access to dashboards, significantly increasing mobile engagement.

• Global UX leadership: Managed a team of 15 UX professionals across various company divisions. Collaboratively established product visions, roadmaps, and mobile strategies, resulting in successful SaaS and on-premises web applications.

 
NOKIA, Boston, MA 11/2006 – 02/2012

User Experience Manager
Directed a team of 20 designers as part of the global alliance with Microsoft. The companies co-developed and co-patented applications seamlessly integrating the Microsoft Office Suite onto Nokia mobile phones, a major player at the time, ensuring a user-friendly experience for a vast mobile market.

• Mobile productivity leader (Microsoft partnership): Directed a team exceeding 20 designers in designing, researching, developing, and marketing mobile productivity solutions that seamlessly integrated with Microsoft's Office Suite. This collaboration resulted in the creation of new patents under the Global Alliance Charter.

• Social messaging platform architect: Established the design standards and criteria that formed the foundation for Nokia's social messaging platform.

• Intelligent personal assistant pioneer: Invented use cases and designed the entire user experience for an intelligent personal assistant on Nokia's mobile platform in 2007, predating Siri's release in 2010. This solution catered to a wide range of phone models, from low-end to high-end. Secured a partnership with Vlingo (acquired by Nuance) to bring this innovative technology to life.

 
Education
 
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Industrial Design, minor in Psychology, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY

• Graduated with honors.

 
Patents and Certifications
 
Method and Apparatus for Integrating Applications and Related Communications, U.S. Patent NC72194-US
Mastering Negotiation and Influence, MIT Management Executive Educations (07/2022)
Manager as Coach Program, Hudson Institute of Coaching (06/2022)
 
Affiliations
 
Member, Usability Professional Association
Member, Boston CHI
Member, Leading Design
Member, UXPA Boston