Education & Experience

Education

Master of Science, Information Architecture and Knowledge Management

Focus in User Experience Design | GPA 4.0
Kent State University

Mentor and advisor: Karl Fast
Masters Project: The Principles of Pervasive Retail Application Design

Professional Experience

Director of Innovation & Design Strategy

Balance Innovation & Design
2015-present

• Led and inspired the innovation research and strategy business, developing a bold vision that drove significant growth, resulting in over 90% of yearly revenue.

• Mentored and managed multi-disciplinary teams, enhancing their research, strategy, and design capabilities while fostering continuous improvement and professional development.

• Designed and implemented research and strategy projects, including research design, qualitative and quantitative research, analysis and synthesis, and reporting.

• Translated insights and strategies into physical and digital products and services for clients like Cleveland Clinic, Moen, Canadian Tire, 1848 Ventures, Wolters Kluwer, GE Lighting, Cuisinart, Steris, and others.

• Collaborated with leadership to implement strategic initiatives that strengthened the company’s market position, particularly in innovation and design strategy.

• Managed external partnerships across diverse industries, ensuring seamless integration of design, engineering, and software development to deliver innovative solutions.

• Supported business development efforts through workshops, proposals, cost estimations, and client presentations, contributing to substantial revenue growth.

• Recognized with multiple awards, like the 2021 IDEA Silver Award and the 2021 Vega Centauri Award.

Director of User Experience

Rosetta (now Publicis Sapient)
2012-2015

• Led multi-disciplinary teams in designing and developing complex, large-scale digital applications and websites, ensuring a minimum client investment of $2.5M per project.

• Developed innovative strategies and designs that attracted and supported billions of interactions annually for high-profile clients across various industries.

• Mentored junior designers and strategists, fostering a collaborative environment and ensuring the continuous development of team members.

• Received multiple awards for excellence in digital experience design, contributing to the company’s reputation as a leader in the industry, including the L2 ‘In The Company of Genius’ Award.

Senior User Experience Designer & Analyst

Optiem (Adcom Group)
2010-2012

• Led UX design, information architecture, and user research for all digital projects, delivering innovative solutions for healthcare, finance, and retail clients.

• Published industry-leading research (Forrester), contributing to advancing user experience best practices in FinTech.

• Received multiple awards, including the Web Marketing Association’s Best Non-Profit and Best Faith-Based Website for the Archdiocese of Detroit family of websites.

• Developed successful design strategies and designs for Cleveland Clinic, Sherwin-Williams, GE, Moen, LeBron James, Novar, Parker Hannifin, Ridgid Tools, The Archdiocese of Detroit, Materion Corporation, Medical Mutual, Riverside Venture Capital, and Virtual Hold Technologies, among others.

Lead Interaction Designer

Bowne Financial Communications (now Donnelley Financial Solutions)
1999-2010

• Facilitated and designed all digital marketing campaigns for the 60 Bowne worldwide offices and corporate. Managed, developed, and optimized more than 425 campaigns in three years.

• Became an SME in the XBRL financial reporting language (XML-based). Supported and led client education sessions across the midwest.

• Optimized lead acquisition through digital thought leadership and content marketing.

• $4.9 MIL in revenue from a single product launch, Bowne Virtual Dataroom, directly attributed to my core team of 6 people.

• Worked with my core team to 'hack’ RightNow Technologies (now Oracle Marketing Cloud) and Salesforce to leverage behavioral analytics in the form of web and email interactions to serve custom content to hyper-targeted individuals.

• Designed and implemented Bowne’s mobile marketing strategy. Implemented best practices for content creation and execution. At the time, the strategy was focused on flip phones and Blackberries.

Awards: Innovation in Technology Award (2001) | Edmund Stanley Award nominee for Innovation for the strategy, design, and development of a quoting system that reduced the billing cycle by an average of 45 days - 2003.

UX Designer & Strategist, Mentor, and Coach

1996-present