Mark Opland's Email Addresses & Phone Numbers

📖 Summary

I am a product designer and senior leader with over 17 years experience building digital experiences that connect people to the world around them. I apply a deep understanding of user behavior, industry trends and technology to create meaningful products and services. Areas of expertise: user experience strategy, service design, user-centered design, creative leadership, information architecture, usability research, behavioral economics, facilitation & training, and client relationship managementProduct Design Director @ I am responsible for overseeing and directing the design output of the US product design team. Xero is beautiful accounting software that gives small businesses and their advisors real time access to accounting information, anytime, from anywhere. Our universe revolves around our customers and our simple mission to make their businesses more productive. Xero was created by a few developers working in an apartment above a coffee shop. From the onset, their goal was to create a cloud-based accounting solution that is smart, simple, secure and beautiful. Now, we are the global leader in online accounting with over 500,000 paying customers in over 180 countries. Xero’s US headquarters are in San Francisco with satellite offices in Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Denver. We are looking for the best and brightest people to join us as we continue to revolutionize the accounting software industry. Check us out. https://www.xero.com/us/about/careers/ Ranked #1 by Forbes as the World's Most Innovative Growth Company 2014 and 2015: http://ow.ly/Cb0s2 From June 2015 to Present (5 months) San Francisco Bay AreaChief Creative Officer @ As Chief Creative Officer, I was responsible for continuously elevating Comrade’s creative standards and growing our business. I provided executive creative direction to a multi-disciplinary creative team including creative directors, visual designers, user-experience strategists, content strategists and front-end developers. I was directly involved in new-business acquisition, accountable for creative strategy and vision on pitches and all projects. Delivering on a key agency goal of diversifying our client-base, I established and developed relationships for key accounts that contributed to a 25% increase in revenue over the 2014 calendar year. Additionally, I provided hands-on design, research and strategic consultation for Comrade’s most important client relationships. From shipping minimum viable products for startups to developing key strategies, roadmaps and design systems for top financial institutions, I built strong relationships with and amazing products with our clients. From October 2013 to February 2015 (1 year 5 months) Oakland, CADirector of User Experience @ As Director of UX, I led design strategy and execution for Comrade's largest accounts. I mentored designers embedded on interdisciplinary projects and established standards for high-quality and consistent delivery. I built strong relationships with our clients, partnering with them to co-create fantastic products while always seeking opportunities to strengthen their internal organization through education, leadership and collaboration. Together, we delivered products and services on their mobile, tablet, online channels as well as within their branches. From April 2013 to October 2013 (7 months) Oakland, CACustomer Experience Strategist @ As the principal strategist for the Customer Experience team, I provided leadership and definition around the overarching customer experience strategy for our digital channel by collaborating with platform partners and product managers on our most important customer experience investments and projects. Beyond project-level work, I acted as a change agent by facilitating decisions related to strategic roadmap development with an eye towards incremental and/or disruptive innovations at the platform level. I was particularly focused on innovations that would drive improvements to Wells Fargo's design methods or practices that would optimize existing products and services. I researched emerging trends in usability, technology and design and worked closely with business partners to develop working prototypes of future-state experiences. From January 2012 to April 2013 (1 year 4 months) San Francisco Bay AreaUser Experience Design Manager @ Managed a high performing team of 10-15 interaction designers responsible for developing holistic online strategies and executing design solutions for the Wells Fargo Online Banking and Investments platforms. Working with internal clients and stakeholders, I produced successful customer experience strategies through a deep understanding of human behavior, customer needs and business drivers. In this role, I had the opportunity to lead the design team through the largest merger in banking history, bringing Wachovia's 9 million retail households to the Wells Fargo network. Our team created over 25 detailed customer journeys to illustrate to lines of business and leadership teams how the merger would affect our customers over time and across channels, segments and touch points. This innovative approach enabled us to clearly illustrate risks and opportunities which resulted in business leaders taking a more customer-centric approach to decision making. From March 2006 to January 2012 (5 years 11 months) San Francisco Bay AreaUser Experience Consultant @ As an independent consultant, I had the opportunity to build user experiences in global markets, help define next generation concepts and lead efforts for large multi-platform products, services and environments for brands such as: eBay, Visa, Accenture, AKQA, and Virgin. Across a diverse set of projects, I participated in all phases of product strategy, design and execution. Working alongside clients, I conducted stakeholder interviews and workshops to identify and prioritize business opportunities. I led teams through scoping and planning exercises, conducted primary and secondary research, and worked within complex organizational and technical constraints to create customer experience delivery strategies that met the needs, timing and budget of my clients. I have designed and developed prototypes to test ideas, make decisions and iterate towards consensus. I have delivered a variety of artifacts to support the build and maintenance process including UX specifications, use cases, user stories, strategy decks, personas, wireframes and video demos. From May 2002 to March 2006 (3 years 11 months) San Francisco Bay AreaSenior Information Architect @ At AKQA I participated in all phases of scoping, architecture, and design of digital user experiences. I managed the strategy and development of websites, banners, jump-pages and web-based marketing assets. In partnership with business owners, I defined and translated use cases and business rules into web-based solutions. I developed user personas, scenarios, wireframes, and prototypes to advance the design process and ensure a user-centric approach to business decision making. Clients included: Palm, Sierra, Electronic Arts, Concadia and Progressive Insurance. From March 2001 to May 2002 (1 year 3 months) San Francisco Bay AreaSenior Information Architect @ As the second Information Architect in the San Francisco office, I worked with leadership to integrate user-centered design concepts and principles into the iXL interactive design methodology. By standardizing information architecture processes and deliverables across our team we were able to ensure consistency and quality across client-facing work. I designed and developed an XML-based internal application to generate sitemaps and user experience documentation directly from the code we produced. This enabled a distributed team of developers, designers and account managers to track progress, facilitate communication, minimize defects and work more efficiently. Clients included: Dunk.com, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin.com, STA Travel, iFilm, Beatnik, GE Capital, Wells Fargo, Starwood Resorts (Sheraton, W, Four Points) From April 1999 to March 2001 (2 years) San Francisco Bay AreaDesigner and Developer @ From May 1996 to December 1998 (2 years 8 months) Northampton, MaBachelor of Science (B.S.), Computer Science @ University of Massachusetts, Amherst From 1992 to 1997 Mark Opland is skilled in: User Experience, User-centered Design, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, Usability, User Interface Design, Digital Strategy, Mobile Devices, Mobile Applications, Service Design, Design Strategy, Wireframes, Usability Testing, User Experience Design, User Interface, Strategy, User Research, Financial Services, Product Management, Persona, Heuristic Evaluation, Web Development, Content Strategy, Customer Experience, Banking, Usability Engineering, Information Design, Front-end, User Scenarios, Experience Design, Internet Banking, Human Computer..., Site Maps, Wire Framing, Web Project Management, Mobile Design, OmniGraffle, Contextual Inquiry