I am a design leader, strategist, disruptor, super-duper creative person, and all-around pleasant individual with 20 years working across various design disciplines, Always pushing institutional design-centric thinking.

Extensive experience with design-led initiatives, organizational transformations, strategy, and vision. Business and stakeholder management.

Creation, oversight, and mentorship of design teams. Proven record of design process implementation and evangelism. Cross-functional team unification; bringing together design, tech, sales, and business through team-building workshops. Expert presenter and negotiator; able to forge lasting and effective relationships with strategic partners and build consensus across multiple organizational groups.

Serious about what i do and do it with equal parts determination, pride, and pleasure. i want to effect real and impactful change within organizations. i love what i do and want one thing at this point in my career. to integrate and elevate design as the single most important vehicle toward success.

"Derek is enthusiastic, extremely knowledgeable, and fantastic to work with. Moreover, he'll take any idea or concept and take it to a level you never imagined. He brought about long-lasting change to Orion during his time with us."

jeff piazza // sr. vp, design // orion

orion

i worked on some big client projects and generated solid results but, my biggest accomplishment was helping to usher in a true and genuine design-led culture.

ODMI is what we called it. the Orion design maturity initiative. It was great. everyone was on board, but no one understood how to make it happen. The most significant hurdle was aligning sales with the effort.

xd & sales

When we began our design-led efforts, we assumed sales was on board. They were but, not in the proper fashion. They just thought of us as a nicety - just another resource to generate XD targeted presentations for them.

The big mental shift was to force the sales leads of each industry vertical to open a seat at the table for the XD leads. the major shift in mindset was, design is not just a support. instead, xd industry vertical leads were to work hand-in-hand to assist the sales team in developing strategies on how to approach potential clients.

As a result, i led the company-wide effort to create what became known as the Orion XD Sales Hub. A one-stop-shop for sales and XD to learn and work together by utilizing features such as interactive xd sales battle cards and an interactive presentation and pitch builder.

client work

Client work included a huge, eight-month re-envisioning and ground-up redesign of the flagship platform offering of a top-tier financial services product provider. The client was ready to bail on the project until I took the helm and established an entirely new approach to the product and the client and team dynamic.

Other projects included reimagining user experiences for a major media and content service provider as well as consulting one of the largest U.S.-based financial institutions in their efforts to unify the digital experiences of recent acquisitions.

mckinsey

Pretty much the same situation as Orion. i joined the internal team responsible for creating a flagship, internal platform and immediately recognized the need for a cohesive and standardized design-centric approach.

Immediate action was to assemble a team to create a design system to be applied across the three interconnected products. Once implemented, the three interdependent products were able to synchronize and become a unified system.

Once each team was communicating and sharing with the others in the triad, ideation, and concepting increased and the time-to-launch of iterations decreased by approximately 40%.

prudential

The work at Prudential was wide and varied. My time there was when design systems were just becoming a thing and, with five primary business units operating independently, with their own small design teams, we had a lot of work to do.

I was part of a central team tasked with unifying the businesses and implementing a singular, cohesive design approach. The result was the launch of dozens of new digital products and a tenfold increase in user satisfaction.

Notable projects included Prudential's first-ever native app for retirement. An organizational, cross-business unit design system. A fully redesigned B2C dashboard and multiple tools and digital products across the five primary business units.

leftovers

Launching soon; this is a personal endeavor to try and put a dent in hunger. It's an app to donate the leftover money on gift cards. You can also donate the usual way if you like but, the primary goal is to use any remaining balances on gift cards so the card issuers don't get to take it back if it goes unused.

other work

Just some previous work from years ago I felt was worth an honorable mention. A d.i.y. tax app for liberty tax. A full redesign and rebrand of the Yellowhammer agency. A cool salon site and, a cool portfolio iPad app for an up-and-coming fashion designer.

free time

Just a few things i've done in my free time. i really like branding and logo design, among many other facets of design cause, ya know, i'm a designer and i like to design stuff.