LinkedIn Profile | www.jennychang.me | jenny@ichang.com | Boston, MA 02132
USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN LEADER, PRODUCT STRATEGIST, TEAM BUILDER
Respected entrepreneurial Product Design Leader with expertise in driving design thinking, service design and innovation, and user research that are integral to the company culture and strategy for the better part of the last 20 years. First career as a Landscape Architect, uniquely provided invaluable design foundation and systems thinking that are ingrained for design thinking problem solving.
Visionary, inclusive, and goal-driven leadership style making UX a differentiator for the company brand. Builder of collaborative, empowered design teams that share the passion for the big picture and the details of design, from scratch as solo hands-on designer to inheriting teams to coach, operationalize and scale. Comfortable executing in Design and pinch hitting in Product Management leadership roles.
LOOKING FOR
A strategic hands-on senior design leadership role in a mission driven company looking to build and scale an UX practice where Design plays a strategic role in building products that people love. Ideally for a progressive and innovative well funded startup or public company with an inclusive, diverse, supportive culture where UX is engaged and embedded in the organization’s strategy.
Sweet spot of how I can add value and what fuels my passion is at the intersection of design leader and owner of high-impact projects. I love solving the most ambiguous, least understood product problems that intertwine the need in understanding human behavior, the use of process and technology to create experiences and services that are impactful, practical, and delightful.
I am passionate being the hands-on leader talking to customers directly executing everything from user research to translating data and insights into optimal experiences and service design, to running design thinking workshops to create a shared perspective cross-functionally within the company.
I have inherited UX teams and built them from scratch at startups to established companies in various stages of product maturity. I love connecting the dots and empowering designers to execute towards product strategy and helping them grow as creatives. I can offer design thought leadership for the org representing the UX function. I love and get energy from both.
KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Transformed understanding of UX design and research as a critical discipline in driving and delivering product strategy and customer engagement in many organizations that I was fortunate to be part of through upward management and leading by example.
At Zus Health, early stage start-up, brought on board as the 1st designer to be hands on and to build out the UX team. Led UX, collaborated across leadership to define, validate product market fit, desirability, and feasibility for a nascent, never tested healthcare product. Navigating how to design and fly the plane at almost the same time, going from 0 to 1 customers. Distilled mantra of telling by showing throughout product team by rapid prototyping from learned insights to quickly test out in the wild.
At Sonos, inherited and grew 1 of 4 UX teams through a few of company’s firsts: Voice integration (Google Voice) and later led the Consumer Services team to transform Sonos into a service-based company by exploring subscription services viability, desirability, and feasibility to add to company hardware revenue portfolio. Launched Sonos first ever service: Sonos Radio.
At Crimson Hexagon, helped org grow and double in revenue. Inherited a product design team of 7 and established design strategy, user research, operations, and design culture for growth across 4 product areas. In addition to leading product design, successfully owned 2 key features as Product Manager/Owner: Dashboard and Reporting.
At EnerNOC, built UX Team from scratch with yearly growth to a team of 7 over 5 years executing across 4 product areas, 100+ Engineers and 12+ Product Managers across 3 locations. Transitioned company from energy management to a software company. Executed lean UX methodology for a complete product redesign that resulted in quickly bringing an idea to life that received universal executive buy-in along the way.
Architected, mapped, and implemented career paths for product design and UX professionals across multiple organizations that helped to guide and develop skill sets for not only the individual’s career growth, but ones that met organizational needs.
Built a reputable and profitable mobile strategy and design start-up, Rocket Farm Studios. Grew company to $1M+ in gross revenue in just the first year. Led company as Co-founder driving product design, marketing, sales, fund-raising, and operations.
SKILL HIGHLIGHTS
Design, Innovation, Direction
Distill complex to the simple. Communicate, sell at all levels. Drive, facilitate full design cycle. Analytics, customer-driven. Data visualization for storytelling
Product Development
Scrum framework, Agile. Lean UX methodology. Design sprints. User research, usability testing. Certified Scrum Master and Scrum Product Owner
Team Building
Empower, mentor diverse creative teams at start-ups and established public companies. “Fail fast, often, cheap” mindset
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Zus Health, Watertown, MA | August 2021 – September 2022
Zus Health is a series A backed startup with funding of $34M in June 2021, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with ~50 employees. Zus Health aims to help the new wave of healthcare builders easily create technologies and services out of the box that cut down on data waste and duplication. “One health record for every American.” — Jonathan Bush, CEO and Founder
Sr. Director, UX Strategy and Design
Brought on board as the 1st user experience designer to wear many hats: be hands-on, drive experience strategy, and build out the UX team.
Explored and validated hypothesis of going from 0 to 1 customer. Achieved via design thinking, user research, and prototyping to quickly learn and de-risk the product viability, desirability, and feasibility. Lived by mantra of telling by showing.
Hired and built a UX team from scratch. During tenure, 3 full-time hires and 3 part-time consultants. Led and managed team through many pivots collaborating with product and engineering leadership.
Led and balanced team between product design and product marketing. Demonstrated the magic of the product experience for sales pitches and design/build out the product for production. Analogy was we were designing and flying the plane at the same time, which created a healthy tension that aligned us to build and validate minimal viable concepts.
Focused team by providing clarity and aligning execution with product strategy even through weekly, monthly and then quarterly pivots. Goal to get the foundational/core capabilities and experiences ‘right’.
Sonos, Boston, MA | 2019 – 2021
A world leading $4.3B sound experience brand with 1500 employees globally. Inventor of multi-room wireless home audio, Sonos innovation helps the world listen better by giving people access to the content they love and allowing them to control it however they choose. Known for delivering an unparalleled sound experience, thoughtful home design aesthetic, simplicity of use and an open platform, Sonos makes the breadth of audio content available to anyone. Sonos is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California.
Director of UX, Consumer Services (July 2020- May 2021)
In the summer of 2020, tapped as the UX leader to explore and transform Sonos into a service-based company from a 1-time sales hardware company. Led the UX team for the Consumer Services team (~50 UX/PM/ENG) as a startup within an established org to explore the viability, desirability, and feasibility of the suite of services that should be built for Sonos.
Director of UX, Platform and Partnerships (February 2019 – July 2020)
Owned and inherited one of 4 UX teams within Sonos with 5 designers. Led Platform team of ~100 UX/PM/ENG responsible for the strategy and execution of voice, music services, and hardware control integrations via the platform and APIs utilized by companies and individual app developers alike to easily control the sound or content from the Sonos system in 12M+ households. Over 100+ music service integrations with top brands such as Apple Music, Spotify, and Pandora and control partners such as Ikea and Lutron. Partnered closely across org with user research, product management, engineering, and marketing/brand, and customer care to share product visions and build desirable experiences from concept to final product.
Crimson Hexagon, Boston, MA (Recently merged with Brandwatch) | 2017 – 2019
$100 million AI-powered consumer insights company for brand managers, marketers, and executives. Platform enables customers to analyze audiences, track brand perception and campaign performance, and detect competitive and market trends. Clients include Anheuser-Busch InBev, Adidas, General Mills, General Motors, Paramount Pictures, and Twitter.
Senior Director of UX, Product Design
Established UX design practice in growing company of 180+ employees inheriting a team of 7. Joined with the charter to operationalize Design within product development, instill design as part of Crimson’s DNA, build design culture and strategy for product to grow and scale from $20M to $40M+. Merger made Crimson/Brandwatch a $100M SaaS company. Asked to stay on for 3 months after merger for knowledge transfer.
Provided design strategy, guidance, and leadership to the Product Team including UX and Product Management.
Operationalized design for execution efficiency to assure we are building the right things of value within the 3 legged stool concept of Product, UX, and Engineering. Influenced, communicated, and connected these items of value between executives/stakeholders and the team.
Introduced and executed cross-org design thinking workshops and design sprints that resulted in instilling a design thinking culture across the organization: New platform Gateway UX, Smart Alerts, AI Platform beyond social, Dashboard and Reports features, and Customer Platform Journey.
Manage/Hire/Mentor a creative, innovative UX Team by ensuring they are placed in a position to succeed, working in their areas of strengths and challenge them where they are not. Build product design team culture, personality, brand, and thought leadership.
Comfortably stepped in as Product Owner for the Platform’s Dashboard and Reports features.
EnerNOC, Inc., Boston, MA | 2012 – 2016
$400 million energy management company, leading provider of energy intelligence software (EIS) and demand response solutions. SaaS platform empowering enterprises to control energy costs, mitigate risk, and streamline compliance and sustainability reporting.
Director of User Experience (2016)
Built, led, and mentored a diverse, empowered user-experience team of designers, researchers and contractors responsible for end-to-end design including strategy, research and testing for global web, mobile, and desktop SaaS applications.
Oversaw the UX design and execution across 4 product areas including a complete redesign of the core product that significantly improved user experience, drove design cohesion and customer engagement.
Ensured effective collaboration, communication, and planning of UX strategy across a multi-functional team of Product, Engineering, and Product Marketing, and drove executive buy-in.
Drove organizational culture change to adopt a “fail fast, often, and cheap” mindset by introducing and instituting a customer-centric, iterative design processes that resulted in effectively building the right things for the right users.
Managed the design team to a newly instituted UX sprint process that worked seamlessly with our scrum development framework. Spanned UX designers effectively across multiple sprint teams resulting in timely delivery and communication of all design needs.
Senior Manager of User Experience (2014-2016)
Helped to establish a software development division and integrate iterative product design processes in a company without its start in software development. Implemented and drove organizational adoption for integrating the use of user analytics. Executed lean UX methodology with a small team when faced with the need to redesign the parent product experience that resulted in quickly bringing an idea to life that received universal executive buy-in along the way without disrupting the work streams of the core teams.
Manager of User Experience (2012-2014)
Hired with the charter to re-build the user experience team from the ground up. Managed and strategically grew team to execute all design needs across 3 product lines in 3 locations across multi-functional teams.
Rocket Farm Studios, Cambridge, MA | 2009 – 2012
Mobile strategy, design, and development consulting studio for iOS and Android.
Co-founder, UX Director
Oversaw the product strategy, design and user experience across all Rocket Farm Studios projects including hiring and managing all design consultants. Key stakeholder in marketing, sales, fund raising, operations, and product design and development.
Built a successful, reputable, and profitable mobile strategy and design start-up by growing company to $1M+ in gross revenue in just the first year.
Partial key clients include: Good Measures, Holland Mark, SilverRail, Texterity, Trufflehead, Yamaha, Noteflight, Twin Spires, VideoIQ
CityVoter, Inc., Cambridge, MA | 2008 – 2009
A ventured backed start-up technology and software company: CityVoter works with leading media companies such as SF Chronicle, Fox Television, VH1, and more.
Director of User Experience
Led user experience, interaction design, and usability across all web and mobile products across a multi-functional team. Advanced to be a key decision-maker on product strategy and within a short time introduced and executed a customer-centered product development process that met company vision, product direction, and deadlines.
Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA | 2007 – 2008
Financial Services and Investment Management Company.
Design Lead and Information Architect Consultant
Consultant for the Fidelity eBusiness Design (FeB Design) Institutional Brokerage division. Provided design innovation and leadership on projects for a new web-based integrated wealth management application responsible for the user experience, information architecture, user interfaces and interactions working closely with Product Managers, Architects, Analysts, and Developers.
RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
1999-2007
Analysis and Design Manager, Iron Mountain Digital, Southborough, MA | Digital information protection and storage company.
Sr. User Experience Designer, Premiere Global Services, formerly Netspoke, Inc., Woburn, MA | Service and technology company offering ‘on-demand’ web and audio conferencing and collaboration.
Creative Director, ArcStream Solutions, Watertown, MA | A venture backed business and technology consulting firm.
Sr. Web Interface Designer, Miller Systems, Boston, MA | Full-service technology consulting company offering engineering, IT consulting and creative services.
Web Graphic Designer, Iconomy.com, Cambridge, MA | Start-up venture backed company offering eCommerce technology and creative solutions.
1994-1999
Practicing Landscape Architect, Registered, Providence and Boston Areas | Symmes, Maini & McKee Associates (SMMA), Carol R. Johnson Associates (CRJA), Pawlowski Associates
UX TOOLBOX
Design thinking, design leadership, user research, product strategy, systems and service design, product management, lean UX, design sprints, agile approach and scrum framework, whiteboard to facilitate discussions, jobs to be done (JBTD) user stories, VOCs, personas, customer journeys, information architecture, rapid prototyping, task analysis, user workflows, interaction and visual design, Figma, Miro, Sketch, Zeplin, Adobe Creative Suite, CSS, HTML
EDUCATION
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
Bachelors of Science in Landscape Architecture, graduated summa cum laude
AWARDS and CERTIFICATIONS
MITX 2015 Most Insightful: Big Data and Analytics Innovations
Enterprise Energy Intelligence Software (EIS) with EnerNOC
Computerworld’s 2004 Best Practices in Mobile & Wireless Award
Mobile and Web Quality Assurance Application
With ArcStream Solutions, for UNICCO, Facilities Outsourcing, Newton, MA
Certified Professional Scrum Master and Certified Professional Scrum Product Owner, Scrum.org, 2016
MIT Leadership Program, Leading Change in Complex Organizations, 2007
Pragmatic Marketing Certification, 2006
Portfolio samples and REFERENCES
Available upon request