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Feridoon “Doon” Malekzadeh

My expertise is in aligning People, Processes, and Platforms to develop and deliver innovative, business-impacting customer experiences. Known for holistic approaches to design (UX), emphasizing user needs, and leading teams to innovate within organizations large and small. Deep familiarity with consumer (B2C) and enterprise (B2B, SAAS) product landscapes, with a track record of leading strategic product initiatives and fostering high-performance design cultures. Respected as a people-first, servant leader.

I am in Seattle and available for full-time opportunities.

Experience

Independent Head of Product Design
Senior Design Strategist + AI UX Builder
Seattle, WA (USA) – September 2022 – Present
Consulting growth-stage startups and companies on strategic initiatives, iterative product fixes, and hiring design talent, resulting in enhanced design capabilities and successful AI integration.

Serve Robotics – Head of Design
Led initiatives to enhance driving safety for pilots and improve customer experience, robot visibility issues with new digital and analog solutions, resulting in increased operational safety.

Amplitude – Head of Design
Assessed and delivered strategies for improving the product experience, enhancing customer satisfaction, and provided interim leadership to the design team during organizational restructuring.

Magical GPTs – GPT Builder and Conversation Designer
Created and published a series of successful (+55k users and growing) chatGPT-based private GPTs for job seekers, management, and education.

Vice President of Experience Design
Smartsheet, Bellevue, WA (USA) – August 2020 – August 2022

Led a team of over 50 UX designers, researchers, and strategists to define and build next-generation end-to-end experiences for Smartsheet, resulting in improved user satisfaction and product usability.

  • Restructured and expanded the team from 30 to over 50 members, enhancing product development processes and increasing project delivery efficiency.
  • Assessed design workflows, identified improvement areas in tools and sprint integration, leading to optimized Agile processes and increased design review efficiency.
  • Spearheaded initiatives in Analytics, Information Architecture, Persona-based design, Accessibility, and Design Systems, resulting in enhanced product functionality and user experience.

Associate Vice President of Design
AT&T, Seattle, WA (USA) – June 2019 – July 2020

  • Led a team of 150 UX designers, researchers, usability experts, product analysts, content strategists, copywriters, videographers, and prototypers through AT&T’s e-commerce digital (web and mobile) transformation efforts, resulting in improved user experience and streamlined design processes.
  • Set vision and defined charters for the strategic and day-to-day functions of the overall design organization, leading to increased efficiency and clarity in design operations.
  • Provided mentoring and feedback to design teams, aligning work with overarching design strategy and organizational goals, resulting in enhanced team collaboration and output.
  • Defined and drove processes and accountabilities for better design representation and authority in Agile teams, resulting in more cohesive and effective design integration.
  • Established a partnership model of collaboration with design across the product organization, fostering stronger cross-functional relationships and enhancing project outcomes.

Head of Design
Helm (formerly Privacy Labs), Bellevue, WA (USA) – April 2017 – June 2019

Delivered a new data security product from prototype to market in 18 months, enhancing user data protection and expanding market reach.

  • Led branding, industrial design, and packaging design with third parties, ensuring cohesive visual language and brand voice, which strengthened brand identity. Developed all marketing assets.
  • Provided strategic design direction, refined feature roadmap, and defined, designed and delivered all elements of iOS and Android mobile applications (wireframes, prototypes, copy, visual design).

Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer
OrbSense Technologies/Cluck, Seattle, WA (USA) – April 2016 – April 2017

Designed and developed a new connected device, Cluck, for the kitchen and connected home IoT space, leading all key aspects of brand development and product definition, resulting in a cohesive and innovative product offering.

  • Led product vision, roadmap, positioning, and definition, conducted market research, identified target demographics, prepared for crowd-funding, managed social media marketing, and wrote and filed patent applications, resulting in a well-defined product strategy and increased market readiness
  • Developed branding and logos for the company and product, designed UX and UI for a smartphone application, conducted field testing and user research, and created content for the website and social media platforms, enhancing brand identity and user engagement
  • Managed the development of the crowd-funding presence, resulting in increased visibility and potential funding opportunities. More details can be found at: http://www.malekzadeh.net/cluck

Senior Director of UX & Design
Samsung USA, Seattle, WA (USA) – April 2014 – April 2016

Redesigned the Samsung+ customer loyalty application and drove customer ratings from 2.4 to 4.1+ for the first time since launch.

  • Significantly increasing the active and engaged user base by 12 million monthly active users while maintaining an 80% retention rate
  • Implemented an omni-channel Design Thinking approach to enhance customer support experiences, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and streamlined support processes

Principal Design Manager
Microsoft, Seattle, WA (USA) – February 2012 – April 2014

Lead multi-disciplinary UX teams at Bing to conceptualize, specify and develop ground-breaking user-centric product and service designs

  • Led Social Incubation program, encompassing a group of designers charged with researching, creating and delivering innovative solutions for integration of social data (from Facebook and Twitter) into Bing.
  • Articulated and presented the vision, design objectives, strategy and creative executions to senior leaders and executive management across the organization; developed value proposition and defined core use cases.
  • Led a small group of designers to redefine cross-product and cross-team monetization experiences for Bing Ads with a focus on Small Businesses (SMBs).

Design Director – UX Design & Usability
T-Mobile USA, Seattle, WA (USA) – August 2008 – January 2012

Defined and drove the creative design and delivery processes across product teams (User Research, Product Development, Tech, and Industrial Design).

  • Managed intake, project and resource prioritization, capacity planning and forecasting. Managed/mentored team of 25 UX designers/researchers (15 FTEs and a contractor team of 10+).
  • Provided creative leadership and best practices for key initiatives while advocating design value internally.
  • Spearheaded design effort and team in delivering the first franchise device on the Android platform, the MyTouch 3G.
  • Redefined the product development process between the design, development and program management teams to successfully deliver T-Mobile’s first franchise device on the Android platform.
  • Provided creative leadership and best practices for key initiatives while advocating design value internally.

Earlier Experience

  • frog design inc., Creative Director, Seattle, WA (USA)
  • Vodafone Holding GmbH, Senior UX Manager, Düsseldorf (Germany)
  • Sapient Corp., UX Manager/IA, Munich (Germany)
  • Kabel New Media, Digital Art Director, Munich (Germany)
  • red ant media, Senior Designer/Information Architect, Munich (Germany)
  • conception (now Reaze), Web Designer, Siegen (Germany)

Skills Summary

Product Design

  • Interaction Design
  • Conversation Design
  • Prompt Engineering
  • Information Architecture
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Usability Testing
  • User Research

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Prompt Engineering
  • ChatGPT / OpenAI
  • Anthropic / Claude
  • MidJourney
  • Perplexity
  • Pi

Software

  • Adobe Creative Suite (XD, Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere)
  • Figma / Sketch
  • Balsamiq, Gliffy, Visio, Pencil
  • ChatGPT

Leadership

  • Leadership, Mentoring & Coaching
  • Spearheading Design Strategy
  • Team Collaboration & Facilitation
  • Project Planning & Estimation
  • Organization & Prioritization

Education

SAE Technology College, Cologne (Germany)
Multimedia Design/Production

University of California in Irvine (USA)
Bachelor of Arts in Humanities

Career Interests: AI-related roles and roles calling for digital transformation in their industry (e.g. consumer electronics, edtech, fintech, pharmatech, healthcare, etc). I also love working on products with a software/hardware interface.