The goal is always to connect with customers and design products that resonate with people
Farmers Business Network (FBN)
SENIOR PRODUCT DESIGN MANAGER
As Senior Product Design Manager at FBN, I was responsible for transforming the agricultural technology (AgTech) and commerce platform from a yearly paid membership model to an open platform for farmers. By leading the implementation of a central design library, a new content management system, and multiple SEO experiments, my strategic design efforts directly contributed to a 6x increase in user memberships and generated hundreds of millions in revenue. I facilitated workshops that inspired hundreds of new ideas based on farmers' journeys and organized a series on Design Thinking to evangelize its benefits throughout the organization. These collaborations led to enhancements in platform usability, improved product discovery, and streamlined customer engagement workflows, ensuring seamless integration with the Commerce, Finance, and Marketing teams.
Through interviews and interactions, we listened to our farmers' unique needs and, through quick experiments, delivered the right solutions at the right time.
My role also involved developing design frameworks focused on accessibility, navigational consistency, and personalized content tailored to farmers' needs. These efforts ultimately helped FBN create impactful solutions that empowered its members to make confident decisions and ensure the economic viability of their farms.
www.fbn.com
NOTABLE PROJECT: Platform Unification
(2024)
Project Overview
This project aimed to shift the FBN platform from a paid membership model to an open platform for verified farmers. The strategic focus lies on enhancing self-service onboarding, reducing friction, and providing value quickly.
Challenges
Sign Up, Onboarding & Verification:
Developing new account creation processes that are self-service, accessible, and clear for farmers.
Identifying user motivations for sign-up ("Reason For Sign Up") and building relevant onboarding experiences.
Implementing an automated, user-friendly onboarding process that minimizes the need for sales calls.
Ensuring clear guidance for new users and managing data verification in a way that minimizes friction.
Login Experience:
Redesigning the existing login process, which required email and access links, resulting in a high sign-in failure rate due to various user authentication preferences (passwords, SMS two-factor authentication, and SSO). This challenge impacted customer success and limited opportunities to offer new products.
Moderation:
Implementing a community verification system that restricts access to verified farmers, keeping the community relevant.
Approach
Design Library & CMS:
Established a design library and a content management system to maintain consistency and efficiency across user entry points and flows.
Spearheaded the creation of FBN’s first Design System Library, standardizing UI/UX components with a drag-and-drop interface for non-technical members, significantly reducing engineering dependency and empowering staff to manage web content independently.
SEO & Organic Search:
Conducted multiple SEO (A/B testing, Amplitude) experiments to optimize visibility and reduce friction in onboarding flows.
Leveraged user generated content to provide higher relevancy and value to farmers' unique geographic and planting needs
User Journeys:
Mapped out user entry points (e.g., homepage, product pages) and created tailored flows that align with the user's "reason for sign-up."
Developed onboarding experiences for new users based on their specific interests.
Federated Login Experience:
Redesigned the login process to implement a federated system that allows users to log in with either phone numbers or email addresses.
This pivot reduced login failures and provided a seamless user experience while ensuring customer success could offer timely products.
Community Moderation & Verification:
Developed and implemented a verification system that only grants verified farmers access to the community.
Managed moderation processes to safely control new user contributions.
Project Management:
Used a sprint-based schedule to progressively refine designs, align with stakeholders, and iterate through continuous testing.
Results
6x Growth: The open platform and seamless onboarding process contributed to a 6x increase in user memberships.
Revenue Generation: Generated hundreds of millions in revenue by removing the paywall and providing personalized solutions at scale.
Efficiency in Marketing: The new design system enabled marketing teams to spin up new pages in minutes, significantly accelerating time-to-market for new content and campaigns, compared to the previous days-long wait for engineering resources.
Primal Loop
Founder & Principal
Established in 2015.
As the Founder of Primal Loop Primal Loop, a Brooklyn-based UX Design & Strategy consultancy, I lead efforts across various industries to enhance business growth and improve user interaction. Our team collaborates with both groundbreaking startups and Fortune 500 companies, delivering transformative solutions. Notable projects include refining onboarding processes using media analytics and AI, developing comprehensive dashboard strategies for enterprise-level environmental and financial operations, designing intuitive interfaces for energy trading platforms, and implementing conversational systems for HR management. These initiatives have significantly improved operational efficiency, user engagement, and business scalability.
Some clients we’ve worked with include:
Fortune 100, Food & Beverage Company
Work Involved: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Growth Strategy, Emerging technology
Fortune 100, Telecommunications Company
Work Involved: Internet of Things, Mobile Technology
Fortune 500, Business Services Company
Work Involved: AI, Mobile Technology, System Architecture
Case Studies
Enterprise Imaging Solutions: Created a multi-tiered dashboard for a Global 500 company, significantly improving operational efficiency.
Energy Automation Platform: Designed an intuitive user interface for enhancing scalability and efficiency of energy management solutions.
Human Capital Management: Developed a conversational system for mobile HR management, simplifying user processes and reducing operational strain.
See more at: www.primalloop.com
FINO Consulting
Director of UX and Design
At Fino Consulting, my role as Director of UX and Design allowed me to build and lead a diverse team skilled in user experience, product design, software development, and more. We redefined client engagement by employing data-driven design strategies and a deep understanding of user behavior to elevate user experiences and improve project deliverables across vital sectors such as energy and education. Our team excelled by harnessing our collective curiosity, empathy, and a strong desire for intuitive design, enabling us to delve into various markets, grasp user needs, and deliver impactful solutions. My responsibilities included monitoring technology market trends, identifying design innovations, and developing effectiveness metrics. I also crafted strategic marketing campaigns and systems to analyze financial markets, helping to identify new business opportunities and drive product launches.
We combined our software, data, and design expertise to develop new ideas to help energy companies achieve their most important goals.
Notable PROJECT: APRICOT
Apricot is a formative assessment tool that allows teachers to collect real-time responses from every student to drive instruction.
Apricot is a neat tool that allows teachers to quickly and easily deliver writing prompts to students. It's very simple to use and the writing platform is just geared for writing. In today's digital world, having a teacher or a service send work directly to a parent's phone or laptop is priceless.
- Wenatchee School District's IT Department
BEst MEMORY:
Accomplishing a complete redesign and launch of the Apricot Platform in just three months by aligning design team strengths.
FINO ACCOLADES & AWARDS:
Apricot Platform: “What a great tool to get your students writing daily!” – Teachers First
Apricot Platform: “Apricot seems to have a nice niche in the writing delivery and collection department.” – Wenatchee School District’s Instructional Technology Department
Teacher Tweet: “LOVE THIS! Can't wait to start using it - Fabulous idea for parent interaction to learn about their child's learning”
2015: Finalist for Microsoft Application Development Partner of the Year
2015: Named in Inc. Magazine as the 57th fastest-growing software company, with 3-year sales growth of 736%
2014: Named in Inc. Magazine as the 41st fastest-growing software company, with 3-year sales growth of 956%
MeeGenius
UX AND DESIGN Lead
At MeeGenius I led COPPA compliance design and experience efforts for an interactive e-book app for kids across native iOS, Android, Windows, and mobile-responsive web apps while also serving as a mentor to junior designers. I developed a unified company brand and broadened the appeal of MeeGenius products; these accomplishments increased revenue and partnership opportunities with the world’s largest publishers of children’s books.
MeeGenius was acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in August 2015 (Press Release)
Best MEMORY:
Leveraging the team in combination with automation scripts to meet a 12-hour deadline for the creation of 3,500 distinct icons and images for 700 book titles.
MeeGenius ACCOLADES & AWARDS:
2015: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt acquired MeeGenius.
2013: National Parenting Publication Award Winner for Preschool Virtual Products
2013: “Best Children’s Reading and Book Apps” – Scholastic.com
2013: “Best Interactive Games” award winner – SheKnows.com
2013: “Awesome, interactive children’s stories.” – TechCrunch
2012: “The future of e-books.” – Bloomberg TV
Voxy
LEAD Experience DesigNer
At Voxy I led the design of the personalized language learning features for ESL students around the world with an explicit focus on student efficacy. Relentless in the effort to drive business results, our improvements to the live tutoring portion of the site led to an increase of 450% in average revenue per customer. The new tutoring platform was a positive note toward closing the Series B round of $9.5M, led by Pearson Education.
www.voxy.com
Best MEMORY:
Implementing weekly user testing sessions conducted 100% in Spanish; these led to more transparent feedback from our users.
Voxy ACCOLADES & AWARDS:
2015: Winner of Academics’ Choice Award for Smart Media
2015: Recognized for its “innovative approach” by The New York Times, CNN, Forbes, Fast Company, and others
2014: Named one of the “Top 30 Places to Work in the NYC Tech Industry” by Internet Week New York
2012: Ranked one of the “10 Best U.S. Technology Companies to Work For” by Business Insider
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