Resume

ron@rjfernandez.com
LinkedIn
16507221346

Uniquely capable of integrating user-centered design, product requirements, development realities, and marketing messages into holistic product visions. Nine years at Apple at beginning of career provided multiple opportunities to train and excel at a wide range of positions—senior graphic designer, copywriter, and MacOS product manager. Have since prioritized working as a multi-level systems and product designer at first movers in new markets but frequently tasked with marketing, branding, and product management responsibilities.

Designed revolutionary, user-centric Web and mobile products for startups and Fortune 250 companies with direct revenues and associated sales totaling over $1 billion (Palm handhelds, Amazon Kindles, service contracts, etc.). Led funding round messaging and pitch deck creation. Re-branded multiple startups in support of product launches. Individual contributor or senior team manager and mentor. Experience in key markets: financial, manufacturing, SaaS, AI, IoT, medical, communications, and consumer electronics.

HIGHLIGHTS 

  • Senior product and systems designer, team manager, and mentor.

  • Expert at identifying, hiring, mentoring, training, and managing designers, technical writers, usability researchers, and frontend developers.

  • Expert at standardizing UX design systems, processes, and testing methodologies.

  • Expert at integrating UX design processes into Agile roadmaps, improving coordination between Design, Product Management, and Development.

  • Expert at platform-wide redesigns, from the backend to the frontend, across Web, mobile, and desktop clients.

  • Effective in both startups and the Fortune 250: Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and U.S. Bank.

  • Experienced, media-trained corporate spokesperson. Have directed product launches, funding round pitch decks ($60 million), graphics, and demos at multiple startups.

  • Multi-platform, multi-market experience in financial, manufacturing, SaaS, AI, IoT, medical, communications, and consumer electronics.

  • Led award-winning UX (re-)design of Amazon Kindle eReaders, contributing to multi-million unit shipments and sales.

  • Created standards for the modern mobile computing with design of second-generation Palm OS and apps.

  • Designed customer support management portals for Asurion and Avaya.

  • Apple senior graphic designer, copywriter, and MacOS product manager.

  • Technical instructor, textbook author and SIGCHI (Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction) presenter,

  • Conversationally fluent German speaker.

EMPLOYMENT

Head of Design, PARSABLE TECHNOLOGIES (startup)
7/2019 - 1/2022
Hired to to address usability problems with existing Web and mobile “connected worker” checklist authoring and execution platform and to lead a growing UX team.

  • Increased client satisfaction by rearchitecting Web and mobile frontends to align with clients’ roles and use cases while minimizing backend impacts.

  • Hired five UX designers in one year, including experts on accessibility, design systems, and healthcare procedure management.

  • Helped close $60 million funding round by designing and writing pitch deck and supporting materials.

Senior Design Director and Senior Marketing Manager, SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS
7/2016 - 2/2019
Hired to manage in-house R&D team for Internet of Things (IoT) software and hardware. Promoted to marketing manager for all IoT sales, marketing, and trade show content.

  • Designed CES 2017 prototype demo product—a working smart speaker with integrated voice assistance, touchscreen, and mechanical interface—in less than six months and for only $220K.

  • Helped drive sales by writing, designing, and creating content for all IoT platform marketing efforts, sales collateral, and trade shows.

  • Addressed GDRP compliance issues by writing Samsung’s IoT data privacy policy.

Head of Product, ACME Technologies (startup)
5/2014 -6/2016
Responsible for product requirements and design of a multi-platform/SaaS event and venue management and ticket sales service.

  • Designed point-of-sale iOS app which closed key deals including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and New Museum in New York City and the DeYoung Museum and Red-and-White Fleet in San Francisco.

  • Enabled new business initiatives by researching, and designing multi-party B2B2C ticket sales flows which included hard-copy voucher validation and redemption.

  • Enabled dynamic ticket pricing features by simultaneously defining a pricing model and designing an admin frontend. One client eliminated over 400 legacy ticket price definitions. 

  • Simplified backend development as well as client-facing experiences by standardizing the relationships and interactions between event templates and instances.

Vice President of Design, HAN:DLE (startup)
7/2012 - 8/2013

  • Designed integrated email and task management portal according to Getting Things Done (GTD) principles.

  • Managed TechCrunch 2013 “Startup Battlefield” presentation and concurrent product launch efforts. Note: HAN:DLE beat Zendesk at TechCrunch.

Director of Kindle User Experience, AMAZON
7/2010 - 7/2012
Recruited to rebuild Kindle UX team, responsible for the design of three generations of Kindle eReaders.

  • Delivered innovative UX solutions to reduce costs and enable hardware innovation—onscreen keyboards for 5-way and touch (allowed for elimination of hardware keyboards); on-device account setup (eliminated the need for pre-provisioning); new look-and-feel, typefaces, and lighting controls (maximized high-resolution and back-lit screens).

  • Executed UX design strategy to support business development goals—universal design support for localization (required for sales in EMEA and APAC), on-device transactions (increased spontaneous purchases), and integrated advertising. 

  • Regularly pitched design solutions at C-staff level, including Jeff Bezos.

Director of Product Design, Strategy & Emerging Technologies, AVAYA
Director of Product Design, Traverse Networks (acquired by AVAYA in 2008)
5/2005-6/2010
Joined Traverse Networks (later acquired by Avaya) to design a unified communications platform.

  • Designed Traverse Network’s mobile, desktop, and web unified communication clients which were core to the Avaya acquisition. Unified communications app suite integrated voice, voicemail, contacts, video, and other services.

  • Enabled unification of stand-alone Avaya services by creating development and UX integration strategy and requirements.

  • Wrote detailed developer requirements by writing 56 multi-client call flows and user journeys.

Senior HI Design Engineer, Human Interface Team, PALM COMPUTING
7/1999-4/2004
Founding member and manager of the Palm Human Interface (HI) Team.

  • Executed a UX design strategy to support high-res graphics, typefaces, and color.

  • Modernized the 2nd generation Palm OS by updating existing apps, desktop clients, and on-device product tours.

  • Delivered innovative UX solutions to enable hardware innovation in the Palm Zire 71 (the first handheld with a camera, voice memo app, and phone dialer), and the Palm Tungsten T2 (expandable form factor revealed text input field).

Senior Vice President, USER EXPERIENCE PRODUCT MANAGER, U.S. Bank
4/2022 - present
Recruited to design in-house, cloud-based portal with privacy and governance features for unified data, analytics, and AI/ML.

  • Increased data migration to the cloud by redesigning portal to align with users’ and business teams’ established processes.

  • Increased regulatory compliance and data security by designing roles-based privacy validation and data governance flows.

  • Evaluated and influenced selection of third-party data quality tools including Microsoft Purview, Manta, and Collibra Data Intelligence.

CONSULTING

I am often asked by people in my network to provide design consulting services for interesting stand-alone projects. These are some of my favorites.

Insulin pump app design, Eversense
2019
Dubberly Design Office (DDO) hired me to design a mobile glucose monitor app which eventually won FDA approval.

CES Strategist, Asurion (six-month contract, extended)
8/2013 – 4/2014
Hired to research and design a product vision for Asurion’s CES 2014 presentation.

  • Devised call center agent dashboard strategy and design in six months.

  • Designed and delivered all CES demo materials, including interactive, click-through prototype.

  • Delivered an integration strategy for new acquisition (Soluto).

Head of Product, Palate Home (incubator startup—options only, open ended)
5/2014 – 12/2015
Asked by Don Norman (Nielsen Norman Group) to design and deliver “graduation materials” for personal Internet of Things (IoT) “smart grill” project at Y Combinator, a startup incubator.

  • Defined smart grill product requirements through a comprehensive iOS app design.

  • Helped secure initial contacts with Apple Store buyers by scripting and participating in a compelling product graduation demo.

  • Positioned Palate Home as a premium product opportunity with a complete branding effort.

Visual voicemail management
US8396456B2

Conference material bot method and apparatus
US8290136B2

Specified Constraints For Message Responses
US20100262921A1

Adapting display fonts for reflective displays
US9190025B1

Real-time communications application
US20180249004A1

CallorNot alerting application
US20160316056A1

PATENTS

EDUCATION

Stanford University, BA in History
​Aargauische Kantonschule (Canton Aargau Technical School), Aarau, Switzerland

PUBLICATIONS

The Palm Zire 71 Camera Interface
Paper and presentation to SigCHI in Vienna, Austria 

Approaching Macintosh (first and second editions)
Addison-Wesley