Hi! I’m Jeff.

I love creating products and experiences that just make you want to engage, to play with what’s right at your fingertips.

A Northern California native, I grew up over the hill from wine country. In August of 2006, I made the cross-country move to New York City, like so many, drawn to the electricity and energy of the city, but moreso, looking to start my career in design.

Six weeks later, I landed my first product design job at Social Sauce, “sosauce”, a start-up travel content and social platform (now resigned to the pantheon of defunct start-ups). It was at sosauce where I realized that design was far more than informative, it was motivative for people who wanted to explore their passions in ways they had not yet realized.

Since then, I’ve used design solutioning to create deep and delightful experiences for end-users engaging companies and industries, the world over — from local orgs to Fortune 100/500 companies with global footprints.

At the heart of all the work? Helping people — in ways both tangible and intangible.

My Resume

My first web design “project”

A Geocities tribute website to my favorite 90s tennis player, Goran Ivanišević of Croatia. “Ajde, Gorané!”

One day in 1996 while shopping at Costco, I found a $29 CD-ROM program called Sierra Web Designer — a W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G. web design program that designed, coded and uploaded directly to Geocities — and asked my mom to buy it for me. Thanks, Mom!

I’ve worn many hats

…throughout my career (a full stack creative, incl. front-end developer), but have focused in on UX/product design and strategy since 2012.

I believe my experience having been a fullstack/multi-disciplinary creative has helped build bridges, I love collaborating and working with everyone, from devs, to PMs, to executive stakeholders.

My first design job

…was during my undergraduate years. I worked for U.C. Davis’ Information & Educational Technology (I.E.T.) department’s marketing office.

We handled campus-wide physical and digital communications for everything technology related: computer labs, student intranet accounts, we even designed some cornball ads for the university’s busses. GO AGGIES!

My creative methodology

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Team casting & management

Build the right team who can collaboratively approach and solution the solution at-hand; set clear goals, be a mentor and guide for the team to successfully realize design strategy.

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Foster a culture of knowledge and courage

Make sure that my team members have the freedom to explore and to challenge their creativity, always in service of self-sustained improvement.

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Facilitate cross-functional collaboration

Ensure design considerations are integrated into all aspects of product development.

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Align design solutions with user & business goals

Ensure that the design strategy and approach provides value to both the business and the user.

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Drive user-centric solutions

Our ultimate goal is to always exceed end-user needs, and, we cannot do that without engaging and embracing our empathy for our users. Testing, observation, user feedback and input, and data reinforce our solutioning.

How I lead

I’ve led teams a small as 3 and as large as 50, inclusive of UX, UI/creative and product management disciplines. My leadership style centers on empowering teams to do their best work through creativity, experimentation, shared knowledge and collaboration:

Be the guide, be the glue.

I want every person I work with to have confidence in my capability to keep the team moving towards progress, and to understand that I am there as an information resource, a creative lens and many times, a facilitator.

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Zoom Out. Zoom In

My favorite takeaway from my time working with start-ups, “seeing the 10,000ft view”, to not get “lost in the trees”. It it critically important for me to maintain perspective and awareness at all levels of solutioning.

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Collaboration. Facilitiation.

Passionate designers individually come with equally passionate perspectives. At the outset of any projects, one ground rule I set is that there is multiple ways to creatively solve a problem. We learn from each other to solution from all angles, and together, deliver amazing experiences.

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Empathy.

Empathy is our greatest superpower, it not only in solving for our end user, but in also recognizing each team members strengths and passions. Building healthy relationships with everyone I work with is one of my biggest priorities.

Words from my colleagues

“I worked with Jeff just a few months after beginning my career in UX and I honestly cannot imagine where I would be now if it weren’t for his stellar mentorship and guidance.”

—
Lindsey Frantz
Director of UX/UI, Wisdom Tree

“In my book, what makes Jeff stand out from the pack is his amazing ability to easily understand a client’s needs and their actual business. When working with Jeff, you never need to spell out the details. You can always trust that Jeff understands what goes into making a good product and experience.”

—
Brian Singh
Sr. Director of Product, The Meet Group

“Jeff was a source of invaluable feedback for myself and other designers. He set a high standard of professionalism and critical visual and UX thinking, which elevated the design team as a whole. I have always admired Jeff’s well thought through recommendations, which were always grounded in keeping the user’s interests at heart.”