Award-winning Design Lead and Strategist with 15 years of experience in Visual Design, Product Design, User Research, & Design Thinking, in companies and academia.
Professional experience
Design Strategy Consultant (self-employed)
NEW YORK, 06.24 - PRESENT
Helping clients define their strategic digital transformation journeys with design services that include: Defining their value proposition, competitive analysis, future vision, roadmaps, and strategic product offerings.
Designing usable and delightful digital products that address core business strategies and user needs, with focus on effective and empathic experiences, and UX metrics around adoption and conversion for business success.
Adjunct Faculty, Design Strategy Parsons The New School
NEW YORK, 01.24 - 05.24
I seek a Design Leadership role with high impact, where I can solve problems and create meaningful and usable experiences for customers of a high-caliber company.
Objective Expertise
STRATEGY
As human-centered design leader, I balance user needs with business strategy and tech considerations, to plan and design measurable experiences.
I plan and roadmap my design backlog, and guide teams through the Product Design process, aligning stakeholders through workshops, personas, user journeys, and prototypes.
I lead design efforts to reimagine processes, web flows, and services, while collaborating with engineers managers, and users to curate and release effective seamless experiences.
An expert in conducting studies and analyzing datasets, I distill insights into recommendations, making the case for concepts.
I currently guide undergraduate students at Parsons on applying Design Thinking methods for innovation, by teaching using multi-dimensional media and a well-curated syllabus.
Curate and manage a semester-long syllabus for the Capstone course with key milestone deliverables, engaging students in applying the Design Thinking methodologies to design user-centric innovative products and services that uniquely solve social problems, enabling them to create successful creative business projects
Teach methods for applying Design Strategy going from research to ideation, prototyping, testing, and thinking through business models, highlighting the importance of validating through iterative user testing
Guide and mentor students with consistent 1:1 and group feedback models, highlighting challenges and opportunities for differentiation, while applying sustainable design thinking methods to their work
Product Design Lead Intuit Mailchimp
NEW YORK/REMOTE, 05.23 - 05.24
Led the re-design efforts of the import flow, contact organization and filtering of contacts within the Mailchimp product, producing multiple prototypes and flows for team discussions, and contributed to key technical decisions, which helped us release features that create a more seamless experience for ~13M customers globally
Co-led user testing efforts of the ‘Audience organization’ page redesigns, which resulted in crucial user insights that enabled us to iterate on a design directions including an AI-driven approach
Strategically framed user problems focused on crafting compelling findings storylines, which persuaded leaders to make decisions and encourage the redesign efforts
Ensured consistency of design deliverables across the product by adopting and curating new design components, which enabled a pleasant experience for users across the product, a key factor in retaining customers
Collaborated with designer and engineers, overseeing the release of new designs in an agile environment drafting user stories, and providing feedback in Jira
Product Design Lead McKinsey & company
NEW YORK, 04.17 - 04.23
Spearheaded multiple digital projects within the Cybersecurity and Recruiting teams, leading stakeholders through design thinking methods, using artifacts like user journeys and personas, enabling strategic alignment, trust and collaboration for effective ideation and problem solving
Designed and prototyped a web portal for hiring managers, and managed design enhancements of the firm’s Candidate application platform, which impacted thousands of applicants per year
Designed campaigns across multiple digital channels for Cybersecurity that impacted 30K+ employees globally, elevating the firm’s security level and safeguarding its proprietary data
Conducted and planned user interviews with 100+ employees, and crafted outcome-driven strategic surveys for multiple projects, while synthesizing impactful findings in socialized decks, to drive process change
Analyzed large datasets from SAT quarterly surveys on the usage of the internal ATS tool, and streamlined UX change processes for effective implementation of feature requests
Ensured design and research deliverables met business OKRs, and contributed to setting strategic visions that impacted business progress, while advocating for users first and being their voice
Taught internal mini-courses on Design and Research subjects, coached teams on UX best practices, and co-led a cultural learning initiative for ~150 employees across departments, hence raising levels of innovation at the firm
Limassol Zok
DESIGN & STRATEGY
Product Design
UX/UI & user flows
Information architecture
Prototyping & Wireframing
Visual Design
Typography & Layout
Agile methods
Design Strategy
Design Thinking IDEO
Communication Design
Branding & Positioning
Basics of HTML & CSS
RESEARCH
Market research
User Research
Personas
User Journeys
User interviews
Surveys
Card sorting
Tree testing
Competitive analysis
LEADERSHIP
Workshop facilitation
Roadmapping
Project Management
Program operations
Stakeholder Management
Teaching & Mentoring
Syllabus creation
Storytelling
Deck writing & design
Tools
Figma, Adobe Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Miro, FigJam, User Testing, Dovetail, Mura.ly, Trello, Asana, Notion, Jira, Wordpress, Microsoft Office Suite; Keynote, Google Slides, Canva, Wix, Squarespace
Adjunct Faculty, Design Research Parsons The New School
NEW YORK, 09.16 - 05.17
Taught User Research Methods course, guiding students to apply IDEO’s frameworks to tap into user needs through qualitative and quantitative studies and apply research protocols
Curated and managed group work with graded assignments and key milestone deliverables, supporting ~30 students through feedback to design user-centric innovative products and services that uniquely solve problems
Enabled multi-dimensional effective learning by balancing teaching methods through lectures, guest speakers, workshops, and engaging case studies delivered through video, ensuring all students absorb the content
Design Strategist Thicket Labs
NEW YORK, 06.15 - 08.15
Ran competitive analysis of the company's industry and benchmarked its offerings, and co-led alignment workshops, enabling leadership to make strategic decisions about positioning its serviceline and SaaS product.
Wrote a white paper on the power of algorithm on social good, highlighting the impact of 'targeted advertising' on biasing and skewing decision making of the public,and designed infographics for tit, creating easy to digest visually-appealing charts that explain the topic.
Provided feedback to junior UX designers on the creative direction of the design of the website and software, highlight key challenges and opportunities for enhancements.
Program Manager & Co-Lead Parsons ELab
NEW YORK, 01.14 - 05.16
Ran the operations of the incubator, and coordinated events with specialists, like workshops with legal and business experts and pitch nights, enabling their effective business growth and successful exposure of ~30 startups, engaging them with the wider network, and widening the lab’s visibility across the school
Managed the ELab’s online digital presence through social media and web content, engaging the wider public and highlighting the presence of the startups in the global entrepreneurial community, celebrating their pitch nights and exposure in a visual and written format
Designer Polypod, Ethos, Solidere, Born Interactive
LEBANON, 01.07-06.14
Led strategic design and research projects with global clients, conducting market research and brand positioning, workshops, engaging them in discovery intake and design critiques, with focus on uncovering their brand voice and character through intricate and bold visual identities and designs, which resulted in expanded visibility of the clients in their respective industries
Designed and art-directed award-winning publications that focused on storytelling through text and photography. Creative products included annual reports, urban journals, flyers, and websites
Art directed the information architecture and websites for high-caliber clients, focusing on visual storytelling, typography, attention to detail, and visual appeal, while guiding web developers with project guidelines, ensuring high quality implementation of website layouts
Education
RED DOT DESIGN
AWARD, 2013
Contributed to the design of 2 annual reports of Solidere LLC, that focused on visual storytelling through minimal layout design and elegant production
MS in Strategic Design & Management
Parsons The New School
NEW YORK, 08.14 - 05.16
Graduated with honors and GPA 4.0
Capstone project was incubated at the ELab
Certificate
UX / Interactive Design
NNG Nielsen and Norman Group
NEW YORK/REMOTE, 10.20
Completed 5 courses: Mobile UX, Complex apps, Web design, Ideation workshops, UX metrics