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Jeff Lagasca

Rooted in empathy, strategy and iteration, I am a Product & UX Design director, an organizer and a builder, excited to solve the most complex problems, and, inspire fellow team members to pursue and realize their creative potential. Designing from Brooklyn, NY since 2006.

Experience

Razorfish Logo
Oct 2023 – Present

Self-employed

(When not fully employed, or, out exploring the world) Providing product and ux design and strategy consultancy services, reflective of the skills at my previous full-time positions listed below.

Select Clients (from 2011 – present):

  • MoMA-NY
  • Startalk Radio
  • CityMaps
  • Studio Analogous
  • Playbill
  • FELA! on Broadway
  • The Knitting Factory
  • K2 Media Labs
  • LoKast
  • Arts in Bushwick
  • Songs of Love for Japan
  • Noble Desktop (teaching position)

Razorfish Logo
Jul 2022 — Oct 2023 | Razorfish

Executive Creative Director, Experience Design (SVP)

  • Northeast region UX/Product Design Lead: managing the agency’s ux/product design practice in the region; directing and mentoring 40+ directors and designers across New York, Boston and Toronto offices.
    • Rokkan UX/Product Design Lead across ROKKAN’s legacy accounts.
  • National UX/Product Design Lead for Razorfish’s CVS Health and Pharmacy account.
    • My team of 25+ re-imagined, designed and delivered 8 first-class digital experiences for CVS within 18-months.
  • With Pfizer, created their first native mobile app utilizing A.I. and biometrics intended for consumer use.
  • Winning $12+ million in new and incremental client business, including pitch wins for CVS Health, Frontier Communications and Pfizer.
  • Founded Razorfish’s Accessibility business resource group, setting agency-standards for innovation and execution regarding accessibility and needs for users with physical and mental impairment.
    • Additionally, active participation with Razorfish’s business resource groups (B.R.G.s) advocating for D.E.I., A.P.I. and L.G.B.T.+ representation within the agency.
  • Select accounts:
Jul 2021 — Jul 2022 | Razorfish

Group Creative Director, Experience Design (GVP)

Dec 2020 — Jul 2021 | Razorfish

Creative Director, Experience Design (VP)


Razorfish Logo
Feb 2020 — Dec 2020 | ROKKAN

Experience Design Director (VP)

  • Specialized in product and service design apps, supporting end-users with mission-critical operational needs. Includes SAAS-based enterprise products:
    • JetBlue BlueEye: Managing all ground-to-air operations conducted by JetBlue’s crewmembers in airports and in-flight.
    • Club Wyndham Voyager: Serving the hospitality company’s call-center agents assisting timeshare owners in a multitude of tasks, including booking stays, managing accounts and account currencies
    • American Express, Global Business Travel, Explore: Delivering bespoke business travel management tools to all of GBT’s client-partnering companies and their staff. 
  • Lead Publicis Groupe UX and design director and experience strategist for IQOS, launching the first-and-only harm-reduction tobacco product to have earned FDA-approval for sale and marketing in the United States.
    • Led a design team of 8 UX and visual designers
    • Product owner of the brand’s web site
      • Partnered with two development consultancies (Sapient, CTR), each respectively in charge of the marketing and e-commerce platforms that delivered the unified web experience.
      • Partnered with two brand and experience agencies (Leo Burnett, GMR) to deliver a cohesive, multi-touch brand ecosystem across digital and 1st-party retail.
    • Collaborated with IQOS brand managers to set product and experience roadmaps.
    • With the advent of the COVID pandemic, led the pivot in the brand’s education/conversion and fulfillment services, embracing a fully digital activation and conversion journey.
      • As a result, with my team, delivered two mobile app experiences (one consumer, one retail) within four months.
      • Transitioned and augmented pre-existing high-touch services — originally in direct retail — for digital.
    • Maximized brand and design for digital experience within a heavily regulated space.
      • Adapted Altria’s legacy Adobe AEM implementation (utilized for existing brands), modernizing component UX/UI and extending component displays to more flexibly and elegantly adopt new styling and user experiences.
    • Grew the account beyond the initial web work to become IQOS’ digital agency of record, encompassing social, data/performance and connected experiences.
    • With Altria, worked exclusively with harm-reduction brands and products.
  • Winning $5+ million in new and incremental client business, and, leading ux and product design for Rokkan’s two largest accounts (Wyndham and Altria/IQOS), each for more than three years.
  • Select accounts:
    • American Express, Tracfone, Verizon, Altria, JetBlue, Wyndham Vacation Ownership, Coca-Cola, Cadillac, Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group • ROKKAN merged with Razorfish in Dec 2020
Aug 2015 — Feb 2020 | ROKKAN

Experience Design Director

Oct 2014 — Apr 2015 (ROKKAN)

Senior Experience Designer (Contract)


iHeartRadio Logo
2012 — 2014 | iHeartRadio

Senior Product Designer

  • Lead Product Designer for responsive web experiences and internal programming tools.
    • Collaborated across iHeart’s product team, consisting of product managers, producers, designers and developers.
  • Designed and managed iHeart’s national web platform, delivering on-demand streams for music artists, podcasts and live broadcasts of 870+ terrestrial radio stations, nationwide and international.
  • Founding product designer of RadioEdit, iHeart’s internal programming tool utilized by both national and local station programmers.
    • Capabilities and tools included:
      • Delivering syndicated, scheduled and curated on-air content across all digital platforms
      • Digital asset management (DAM) for all media types
      • Managing local station contests and sweepstakes
      • Delivering digital media assets to ClearChannel’s network of (at the time) 1500 digital billboards; 
  • Designed and managed iHeart’s white-glove web template, dedicated web sites, branded and implemented for each of iHeart’s local radio stations.
  • Designed iHeart’s first native tablet app for iOS and Android, delivering the product experience to early device adopters.
  • Architectured iHeart’s content syndication platform, distributing content and media across the brand’s national and local web properties.
  • Conducted QA and UAT testing on all of iHeart’s digital products, including web, handheld and 10-foot (television) platforms.

NYU Logo
2011 — 2012 | NYU: School of Professional and Continuing Studies

Information Architect & Senior Designer (Contract)

  • Led the re-architecture and redesign of the NYU-SCPS web site, consisting of more than 15,000 pages, spanning programs and institutes offering over 270 areas of study.
    • Developed the college’s design system, developed for and implemented by their CMS, Day-CQ5 (today, known as Adobe AEM).
    • Designed, defined and spec’d all components utilized within the design system
  • Defined the college’s digital design and style guide.

NYU Logo
2006 — 2010 | sosauce

Product Design Director

  • Founding designer for travel content social platform.
    • Led a team of 3 designers
    • Founded design internship program within the company
  • Designed consumer-facing web products for users looking document and share their travels online.
  • Front-end developed and delivered fully coded products to company dev team.

Skills

UX & Product Design

  • Direction
    • UX design direction
    • Product / UI design direction
    • Creative direction
  • UX / Product Design
    • Desktop, mobile, tablet, 10-foot (TV) experiences
    • Design systems
    • Wireframing
    • UI / Visual design
    • Responsive design
    • Prototyping
  • Information architecture
    • Sitemaps
    • Functional maps
    • User flows
  • Persona definition
    • Journey mapping

Product Strategy & Planning

  • Discovery
    • Brief intake and analysis
    • Stakeholder interviews
    • Analysis and reporting
  • Planning
    • Experience and product roadmapping
    • UX/product/design workshop planning and facilitation
  • Requirements definition
  • Designing with A.I.
    • UX research
    • Data driven design
    • Product planning
    • Personalization
    • Conversational UX

Direction & Leadership

  • Hiring management
    • Candidate screening
    • Interviewing: Individual contributor through management and executive roles
  • Resource management
    • Brief intake & triage
    • Team casting
    • Sprint planning
  • Stakeholder / client management
  • Team leadership
    • Cross-discipline management: UX, UI, Product, Art, Development
    • Facilitating design review and feedback
    • Gauging and maximizing dev feasibility

Additional Skills

  • Applications
    • Figma
    • Sketch
    • Adobe Creative Cloud
    • Usertesting.com
  • User testing & focus groups
    • Design
    • Interviewing
    • Analysis and reporting
  • Front-end development
    • HTML / CCS / Javascript
  • Data and analytics
    • Data intake and analysis
  • Quality assurance
    • QA / UA testing analysis

Education

2000 – 2005

University of California: Davis

B.A.S. Psychology & Anthropology