UX Product Strategy & Leadership

User experience leader focused on building and guiding UX teams to distill complex problems and challenges into award-winning, user-focused products and solutions. For two decades, I have crafted engaging experiences for health and educational software; eCommerce and financial transaction systems; connected home hardware and mobile apps; and enterprise and consumer SaaS interfaces.

Core Competencies 

  • Leading with conviction, empathy, and clearly defined goals.
  • Defining product vision and mission to achieve user and business objectives.
  • Hiring, developing, and leading high-performing user experience departments.
  • Rallying cross-functional teams to achieve product vision and deliver innovative solutions.
  • Collaborating with other executives to dissolve organizational silos and create strong triad product teams focused on prioritizing the needs of both the customers and the business.
  • Instilling the value of user-centered design by efficiently providing tangible business results.
  • Adjusting UX allocation and activities in support of organizational product development processes.

Career

Director of User Experience, Agile Management
CA Technologies / Boulder, CO  
03/2017 – Present

  • Assemble a multidisciplinary, globally distributed UX team of 12 to support CA’s $300 MM SaaS Enterprise Agile Management product suite.
  • Position UX to drive the redesign of flagship product, Agile Central (formally Rally), with the goal of improving subscription revenue, reducing churn, and establishing the product as a market-leader. Beta release targeted for 2019.
  • Elevate user research to a formative role. Utilize learnings to develop the first holistic personas, user journeys, and experience strategy for the entire product suite.
  • Successfully secure funding to purchase and implement the business unit’s first analytics tool to learn user behavior and enable better product decisions.
  • Influence and drive the adoption of CA’s design system, leading to reduced tech debt, accelerated development, and a fluid user experience across the suite of products.

Senior Manager, User Experience Strategy & Design
Verizon / Basking Ridge, NJ
06/2014 – 07/2017

  • Led the iterative discovery, redesign, and measurement of Verizon’s Cloud Storage service (web and mobile apps). Directed the transformation from simple backup to robust photo sharing platform which led to an increase of 50 MM subscribers.
  • Identified the financial opportunity and led the first implementation of the newly acquired AOL 1 Ad Server to display MPU ads to 50 MM Cloud Storage subscribers, resulting in a 1.9% CTR.
  • Successfully aligned and led Verizon’s Wireless, Residential, and Network lines of business (roughly 50 stakeholders) to re-envision / design it’s parental controls service (router, web, and mobile apps). Adoption of this paid service reached 10+ MM subscribers.
  • Led a multidisciplinary team to identify and fix issues with the VoIP Business Digital Voice service. 5 weeks of work resulted in $50K monthly call support savings.
  • Led ideation and validation for two key ventures into the connected home and smart geo-location markets. Aligned stakeholders on activities, procured design vendors, directed all timelines and deliverables. Equipped executives with data to confidently retire both ventures before investing in product development.

Lead User Experience Architect, Professional Development Business Unit
John Wiley and Sons / Hoboken, NJ
08/2013 – 02/2014

  • Led a lean team to investigate innovative reuse of book content to increase revenue streams.  
  • Focused on eLearning and Talent Management markets; I led smoke tests, prototype validation, surveys, competitive analysis, market research activities to test new ideas and market viability.

Director, User Experience
HealthEd Group / Clark, NJ
07/2011 – 08/2013

  • Established the user experience department, provided strategic vision, goals and best practices while demonstrating business value to clients and internal stakeholders.
  • Supported the firm’s health education product suite, while crafting content Websites for pharmaceutical clients; Novartis, Genentech, Johnson & Johnson, and Horizon Blue Cross.
  • My team’s work reimagining the patient health record in 2013 received first-place honors from the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Senior User Experience Designer
Catalyst Group Design (Cooper) / NYC
10/2005 – 07/2011

  • Led user-centered design activities for content Websites, mobile apps, Web applications, and SMART board. Clients included Redbox, Christies, AccuWeather, AARP, and McGraw-Hill.

Freelance User Experience Designer
Self / NYC
12/2001 – 10/2005

  • Research, design, and testing contributor for Startups, Agencies, and Fortune 500 organizations including about.com, Boeing, Canon, Hearst, College Board, DoubleClick, and Zagat.com.  

Senior Information Architect
KPE / NYC
08/2000 – 11/2001

  • Developed a passion for UX by leading research, strategy, and design of eCommerce, marketing, and content Websites for Sony, WWE, Discovery Channel, Beauty.com, ESSENCE Magazine.

Product Development Scientist
Lot21 Interactive / NYC
11/1999 – 08/2000

  • Launched Lot 21’s incubator focused on identifying and developing new ways of delivering content and marketing messages through Interactive TV and mobile devices.  
    Researched new technology, created prototypes, drafted patents, participated in biz dev.

Production Manager
APL Digital / NYC
11/1998 – 09/1999

  • Grew a department of 7 designers and UI developers to craft Websites for Dell, Iridium, and UPS.

Site Builder and Manager
Agency.com / NYC
12/1996 – 11/1998

  • Started my career designing, illustrating, and coding (HTML, CSS & JavaScript) Websites for some of the world’s largest brands including Amazon, Nike, MetLife, HP, and British Airways.
    Promoted to lead a multidisciplinary team of 11. Managed all activities, timelines & deliverables.

Freelance Illustrator
Self / Philly, Hoboken, NYC, Maplewood, Golden
05/1995 – Present

  • Illustrator specializing in children’s books and magazines. Clients include McGraw-Hill,Scholastic, Sterling Publishing, Kidzone Magazine, Bill Smith Studio, and more… 

    http://www.landoflello.com

Speaking & Thought Leadership

Education

  • 05/1994   Bachelor of Fine Arts, Illustration / The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA
  • 02/2010   K-12 Teaching Certificate / Art Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ