Experience design · Toronto
Twenty-seven years of shipping things people actually use.
It started with an online skate shop I ran out of Dubai in 1999, and carried on through agencies, a civic startup I co-founded, a life sciences platform, and eight years inside a bank. Raised across seven cities, which is where the habit of solving from more than one angle comes from. Today I run 4th Culture, an independent practice for product strategy, design leadership and delivery.
The short version
Product strategy and design leadership across financial services, health, mobility, retail and public information systems. Agency side, startup side, and inside the enterprise.
Career
The whole run, in order
An independent practice for product strategy, design leadership and delivery. I stay in the build, and bring in trusted specialists when the work calls for them.
People manager in TD Invent’s Human-Centered Design Practice, running design teams across the Wealth pillar: WebBroker, Web Business Banking, TD Asset Management and EasyWeb. Two patents filed out of the work, and The Globe and Mail ranked TD Direct Investing Canada’s top digital brokerage three years running.
UX lead in the same practice, contributing across WebBroker, Web Business Banking, Business Connect, TD Asset Management, Global Investment Solutions, EasyWeb and MyInsurance.
Directed product design on KINETiQ, Klick’s life sciences brand management platform.
Directed user experience on Circulation, the non-emergency medical transport platform built with Uber and later Lyft, which LogistiCare acquired in 2018 for $57.5M.
A civic app for reporting congestion and parking violations. It earned its own Wikipedia entry and a run of national broadcast interviews, and I handled everything from research and product to investor relations.
Built the product design team alongside the managing partner: the process, the templates and the measures needed to scale it. Clients included American Express, Chapters Indigo, StubHub and C Spire.
The link between client stakeholders and delivery teams on mobile and enterprise work for BMW, Land Rover, Nike, Microsoft, Hugo Boss and Novartis.
Directed a team of hybrid designer-developers across dozens of sites, involved from information architecture through art direction and front-end build. Luminato, Mirvish and the Gardiner Museum among them.
A freelance-first agency built during the downturn, staffed with talented people the recession had laid off. Voted one of Marketing Magazine Canada’s top 25 creative professionals during this period.
Contract work through Trapeze Media, Youthography, Henderson Bas and Indusblue, covering information architecture, art direction, front-end and sound design. Jaguar, Ubisoft, Mattel and Pizza Hut among the clients.
The work widened into design and front-end on digital transformation sites. This is where I moved off table layouts and onto pure CSS. Clients included The Home Depot, Samsung, Volvo, eBay and Kijiji.
Hired as a student at Toronto Metropolitan University. Banner campaigns and microsites, eBay and MSN among them.
The first online skateboard shop in the Middle East, run out of Dubai: wholesale supply and logistics partnerships, inventory, marketing, and the storefront itself. Dubai now hosts the X Games.
Practice
Executive design leadership & stakeholder alignment
User research & insight synthesis
Market, competitive & heuristic evaluation
Behavioural and product analytics
Service and system mapping
Product definition & roadmap shaping
Experience design & prototyping
Design systems & front-end implementation
Experimentation & optimisation
Industries
Financial services & fintech
Health, pharma & life sciences
Mobility, automotive & transportation
Retail, commerce & consumer brands
Media, entertainment & gaming
Hospitality, tourism & events
Real estate & property
Marketing, advertising & communications
Public and environmental information systems
Speaking & education
Invited to explain the work
Recommendations
In their words
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A rare breed of UXer who understands all angles of his craft
Michael Melnick
Now SVP Experience Design, Klick Health
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His leadership was critical to our success.
Keith Liu
Now EVP Corporate Strategy, Klick Group
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Incredibly knowledgeable in user experience design and information architecture
Alkarim Nasser
Now Product Growth & AI Leader, Google
Companies & clients