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Detailed résumé
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VP of Product Design
Oct 2019 - Jul 2023
Indigo is a unicorn startup tackling climate change through soil carbon sequestration and sustainable grain trading. My team drove research and design across the company, chiefly focusing on the three major digital platforms: Market+ grain commerce, Carbon crediting, and Source sustainable crop programs.
Unfortunately the annual adoption cycles and risk-averse nature of agriculture have proven to be challenging for VC timelines. Indigo raised a final $250M in 2023 (atop $1.5 billion of prior funding) on the condition that they reach profitability without further rounds. Leadership were forced to shrink the software team by over 60% as a result.
PRODUCT IMPACT
Oversaw design improvements to web-based data submission workflows that cut user effort by ~65% and reduced customer dropout from program completion funnel by 75%.
Directed outside consulting group to design, build and launch native mobile app for farmers over a 5-month period. App garnered 5-star reviews and drove 4x funnel completion rates relative to web users. App was pulled due to commercial constraints but was achieving 40% MoM DAU growth.
Created unified app vision to bring together siloed product groups into single user experience, successfully anticipating sales team and direct customer requests that arrived 3 months later.
Scoped and closely guided an exploratory engagement with an eastern European contracting firm to both prototype a critical new capability and establish permanent offshore capabilities. Delivered working demo software within 6 months, to positive reviews from internal commercial teams and external customers. Offshoring efforts were successful and are expanding.
CAPABILITY BUILDING
Built team from 6 to 26 staff (in line with other functions and budget) with minimal attrition and high rate of performance.
Worked with Engineering, Data Science and Product Management colleagues to implement a new Software Development Lifecycle process across the technology group, improving product development quality and readying Indigo for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
Overhauled and extended the design system and front-end component library in partnership with engineering leaders, and drove adoption across the product suite, thereby significantly improving usability and consistency for customers.
Established research team including research ops function to manage recruiting, scheduling and compensation, as well as implementing a knowledge management system to centralize customer insights and make them accessible across the company.
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Chief Experience Officer
Oct 2019 - Jul 2023
Redesigning the critical tools that clinicians and administrative staff use 8+ hours a day to deliver medical care. Head of 90+ person Experience Design team based in Boston, Austin and India, and spanning design research, service and interaction design, and UX engineering. Interfaced with leaders of 1200+ engineering team and 250+ PM team. Managed budget and forecast for ~$14.2M compensation and ~$1.6M expenses annually.
PRODUCT IMPACT
Drove ~20 point increase in User NPS over 3 years - athenaClinicals is now consistently rated as a leader in clinician satisfaction for EMRs, with similar standing for their revenue cycle tools.
Integrated an acquired company to launch athenaOne mobile app for clinicians which continues to maintain a 4.6/5 average review in the Apple app store (in an industry where clinicians hate most software).
Led a collaborative effort across product, design and engineering leadership, creating a long-term vision for an integrated product suite. Outputs from the effort continued to be leveraged for roadmapping and strategy 2+ years after completion.
Sponsored effort to map all Jobs-To-Be-Done across core product experiences, now serving as an index for many company activities (e.g. Product Roadmapping, Help Content, User Permissions)
CAPABILITY BUILDING
Rationalized existing talent and structure shortly after taking up the role, and led the team through company-wide Agile transformation.
Established and grew design teams in Bengaluru and Chennai to support full-stack product development teams. Teams now operating effectively with 20+ design staff, overseen by senior design leaders in each location.
Standardized concept validation method to ease rapid prototyping and streamline informing the product roadmap. Centralized survey tool was eventually managing 30+ feature concept tests per month.
Led creation of a modern design system made up of React-based front-end engineering component library. Now used throughout the company for all novel product development.
Drove vendor selection and integration of behavioral analytics platform to enable detailed analysis of user behaviors in alpha, beta and released product experiences.
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VP Experience Design
Sep 2013 - Feb 2016
Employee number 10 at a seed stage startup with technology to monitor blood pressure via wearables. The company built an amazing team, and an amazing product, but discovered 18 months in that the core science couldn't quite pass the FDA accuracy standards. Ten years on, alumni of Quanttus continue to work on blood pressure sensing at Apple, Google and Microsoft.
CNBC article about the legacy of Quanttus.
PRODUCT IMPACT
Developed unique design of wearable device, appropriate to target market. Worked closely with hardware engineering team to maintain appeal and usability of the design through to final ready-to-manufacture state, at target cost. Ran large willingness-to-pay study that validated market appeal of the design.
Completed design of the on-device firmware UI with limited input and display constraints, and a large set of target functionality.
Developed companion application and validated usability. Adapted the design to a standalone blood-pressure tracking app. App launched and achieved 4.8* reviews in Apple App store with over 5000 users acquired in 4 months despite near-zero marketing spend.
CAPABILITY BUILDING
Built high-functioning design team from scratch, reaching 7 in-house team members and a consortium of external contractors and consultants. All team alumni have gone on to significant roles.
Critical role in establishing agile design and development cadence in partnership with Technical Program Manager - including bi-weekly testing with users throughout app development effort.
Interim VP of Product Management for 4+ months while helping recruit backfill. Represented product strategy to Vinod Khosla and other board members throughout company lifecycle.
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Portfolio & Community Director
Jan 2008 - Sep 2013
IDEO is a world-renowned design and innovation consulting firm. I joined as a medical device engineer and business strategist. I left as a product innovator with skills in research, digital design and brand/copy.
Progressed from Project Leader to Client Relationship Manger and Portfolio Director overseeing multiple project teams and selling work with an individual sales target. Final year was spent as a Design Community Lead - equivalent to a Senior Director role.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Global account lead for Merck pharmaceuticals, growing annual consulting revenue from baseline of less than US$500K annual revenue to more than $1.5M for three consecutive years.
Guided 2-4 IDEO project teams, of 3-5 designers each, across 1-3 international offices at any one time, with career development and management responsibilities for 5-7 design staff, including recruiting and hiring activities.
Responsible for leading business development and engaging design community in sales process, exceeding individual sales target of US$1.2M+ consulting work over final 3 years in Senior Director position.
PROJECT EXAMPLES
23andme
On-demand personalized genetic art
Coppertone
New sunscreen application products
Dow Chemical
Solar shingle brand strategy
CVS
Vitamins retail strategy
Human Genome Sciences
Autoinjector device for Lupus
Liberty Hardware
Innovation capability building
Biomimicry exploration
US Green Building Council
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Consultant
Nov 2006 - Dec 2007
PA Consulting is a UK headquartered management consulting firm. Since the late 1970's they have run a product science and engineering office on the outskirts of Cambridge. Following completion of my Masters degree at the Judge Business School of Cambridge University, I joined the technology strategy team. The "Tech Strat" team assessed and advised clients on organizational, process and long-term capability challenges.
PROJECT EXAMPLES
Gyrus ACMI
Product development process audit and redesign
Invibio
Biomaterials commercialization strategy
ICI
Innovation talent and fostering intrapreneurship
Proctor & Gamble
Long-term scenario-planning: water scarcity
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Founder & Board Director
Nov 2005 - Jun 2014
While studying at Cambridge University I co-founded a wearable sensing company to address unexplained infertility. We raised seed funding just as I was departing for the USA, but I remained on the Board of Directors, assisted with additional product development and fundraising, and led the successful FDA 510(K) process in partnership with an external consultant. The company sold several thousand devices, and helped over 1000 couples to conceive. Product sale and subscription service models generated a significant fertility data set but ultimately struggled to find a viable pricing model. The company was liquidated in 2022 just as Apple launched similar functionality on the Apple Watch.
TechCrunch story and ABC news item about Cambridge Temperature Concepts and the DuoFertility service.
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Consulting Engineer
Sep 2005 - Jul 2006
Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) was 12 person engineering consultancy when I joined their office at Black Horse Barn in Toft, Cambridgeshire. By the time I left they had grown to 25 consultants and in 2023 they surpassed 300 staff.
I spent the majority of my time on an integrated blood glucose lancing and test strip device, for a California-based startup. In particular I was responsible for microfluidic design and finite element analysis for the precision-molded disposable lancet cartridge.
Case study on the CDP website.
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Product Development Engineer
Jan 2001 - Dec 2002
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is New Zealand's largest medical device manufacturer generating over $1.5B in annual revenue. I joined as a graduate engineer but was immediately assigned as the sole employee on a new project. The team grew to 7 people during my 2-year tenure but I continued to be a leader of the effort - driving design, prototyping, clinical testing and intellectual property protection. That project spawned the MR880, Airvo and Optiflow product lines which in 2022 generated more than $300M in revenue.
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Student Engineer
Summer 1999 / 2000
As a student engineer at Beca, I had a memorable experience tracing the cooling systems of 3 paper machines at the Kawerau Pulp & Paper mill. These machines, built decades ago, ran at several hundred feet per minute onto 30-ton jumbo rolls to create over $1M of paper per day. My 6am commute had me clambering around these machines in 38C / 100F and 99% humidity while wearing steelcap boots, safety overalls, a hardhat and ear protection for the 90dB noise. The original 1960's Piping & Instrument Diagrams proved to be woefully out of date but ultimately we were able to identify several faults and order OEM replacement parts that improved paper quality and machine reliability.
I include this experience here for entertainment value and because it made a lasting impression on me.
