NorthridgeDirector of User Experience
Mar. 2007 - Oct. 2014Roswell, GABefore joining Northridge, I partnered with them for infrastructure services as part of a proposal I was working on for a large manufacturing company. We collaborated and pitched the work together. A few months later, Northridge’s CEO and Co-founder asked me to join his 50-person company and right-hand leadership team to establish a new business model around User Experience Design, including its service offering, team development, and operations. Successful early on, our UX team became the frontrunner for engagements rather than support services and propelled Northridge into a fully integrated, end-to-end services provider. It skyrocketed us into new markets as far as the West Coast and across borders into Canada and spiked growth in Retail, Manufacturing, and Consumer Packaged Goods & Services, a rather significant feat for a small firm of less than 100 people. I supported the design team in every way possible. I defined, pitched, and won exciting work. I managed a P&L for the first time, balancing lofty ambitions and recognized risks. I served as point person for my clients and player/coach for my engagement teams. I consulted with C-level executives, senior vice presidents, department heads, and other business stakeholders and had the hard conversations necessary to prove the business value of design in advocating for users. For the design team, I leveraged design principles to establish best practices, conduct webinars, drive process improvements, and layer in new disciplines, like corporate identity and branding, search engine marketing and optimization, user research, progressive front-end UI development, content strategy, copywriting, script writing, and video production. We received industry acknowledgment and accolades for our mid-market and enterprise client work, like BJ’s Wholesale Club, Coca-Cola, The Democratic National Committee, Electrolux, Georgia-Pacific, Lowe’s, Time Warner Cable, and Victoria’s Secret.