I am a pro-active and entrepreneurial Experience Design leader with over 20 years of experience bringing User Centered Design processes and methodologies to organisations, embeding Design into existing workflows, and making it one of the cornerstones of Product and Business strategy.
I use my excellent ability to identify, analyse and solve complex problems with efficient, cost-effective, data-informed solutions, to build complex products and services from scratch that meet both the users' and business' needs.
As a leader, my goal is to make Design indispensable to any decision-making process. As a Designer, my goal is to make my role redundant by turning my product and engineer peers into user advocates.
Jul'19 - Today
Senior Product Design Lead at Viasat, Inc
May’15 - May’16
Principal UX Architect at Logentries/Rapid7
Oct’14 - May’15 (contract)
Information Architect / Design Lead at Fidelity Investments
Feb’13 - Jun’14
Senior UX Manager at Apierian Learning
2013 - Today
Head of Technology at MiudosSegurosNa.Net
June’16 - Today
UX / Product Design Mentor at Dogpatch Labs
I joined Viasat in July 2019 as Senior UX / Product Designer and in February 2020 I became lead for Field Services, a business unit with 2 products: TechTools, an Android + iOS app, and Installer Portal, a responsive web app. I've established a way of working with Product and Engineering that frees me up to focus more on strategy and product direction than in low level Design decisions because everyone is fundamentally aligned on what the user experience should be. This allows me to spend more time with higher management influencing decisions and advancing Design in the organisation.
Parallel to that, I'm focused on improving the Design practice and UX maturity level of the organization. In that regard, I've championed a few iniciatives like in-house training, which resulted in a very large number of our 30+ designers enrolling in some sort of long term / specialized training; tool stack update, where we have addopted Abstract among other still ongoing inniciatives; and the (Design) Internship Programme, which I have voluntered to create and run, and where I'm also mentoring the 3 design interns.
Lastly, I'm also involved in multiple social volunteering activities in the company of which I highlight my project to place beehives in the roof of our building in Oslo and commiting to the pollinators.ie chater.
Some samples below (case study coming soon):
In July 2017 I decided to resume my consultancy services. As a consultant, I can carefully curate my clients and projects to include industries/fields I want to know better, as well as broaden my experience in new areas and deepen my skills in subjects I had limited experience before. Working mostly with early stage startups helping them build better products through lean product validation frameworks and get to market by adopting a user centred approach of product development.
Some case studies and work samples below:
I started working in Tenderscout in June 2016. Due to the small size of the team, my role is hybrid and spans multiple departments and responsibilities from which I highlight:
On Nov 30th, at the 21st eir Spider Awards, Tenderscout won Best Digital StartUp of the year and received The Grand Prix award, the highest accolade of The eir Spiders, for outstanding levels of achievement in the areas of technology, innovation, functionality & interactivity coupled with a world class user experience.
In May 2015 I began working as the Principal UX Architect for Logentries, an Irish startup leader in Log Management & Real-Time Analytics, where I lead a small team responsible for the entire in-app UX/UI and reporting directly to the VP of Product. I brought processes and methodologies that made Logentries a more user-centred organisation, and planned and executed on a large number of short to long term projects ranging from strategic to tactical to operational.
In October 2015, Logentries was acquired by Rapid7, a leading provider of security data and analytics solutions that enable organisations to implement an active, analytics-driven approach to cyber security, where I became UX Lead for the Search product.
From October 2014 till April 2015, I have worked as an Information Architect / Design Lead (contract) for Fidelity Investments, one of the largest mutual fund and financial services groups in the world, in their Continental Europe Site Redesign project, which aimed primarily at establishing a consistent Fidelity Digital User Experience across all European websites, while preserving the unique qualities of each local business and market. Under this scope, I was responsible for, and supported the team in:
From February 2013 till June 2014, I have worked as a Senior UX Manager for Apierian Learning, an Irish company based in Oslo.
My main duties were IA, UX, UI, CX, Web Design and Development, managing contractors and reporting directly to the COO.
Planned, designed and developed a niche online eLearning courses website in 3 months (clevercourses.ie).
Under this scope, I was responsible for:
From July 2011 to August 2012, I have worked as a full-time Consultant for Jugnoo, Inc, a Social CRM startup company based in Toronto, Canada. My main duties were planning, development and maintenance of all company’s web properties reporting directly to the CTO, which included:
In May 2011 I opened a small web studio, mblz.me (mobilize me), mainly devoted to mobile development, migration and integration in an effort to answer the growing volume of work I had in this area and to officialise a partnership with Pagelines, a SF based company, developer of the most advanced Wordpress Framework, of whom I was a recommended Professional partner. A month and a half later mblz.me led me to be contacted and offered a contract by Jugnoo, Inc, thus being placed in stand-by.
From January 2006 to December 2008, I worked for the Portuguese chapter of Soroptimist International, an NGO advocating for human rights and gender equality, to help women and girls achieve their individual and collective potential, realise aspirations and have an equal voice in communities worldwide.
I was responsible for all web-related aspects of 4 projects including: planning, design, development, management and support of all web assets throughout their entire lifecycle, as well as the training and assistance to 4 editorial teams.
These projects were focused on gender equality and migrant issues, and aspects of their intersection, like the role of women in the Portuguese diaspora for example, and were co-financed by the European Union and the European Social Fund within Measure 4.4 (Promotion of Equal Opportunities for Men and Women) of POEFDS (Operational Programme for Employment, Training and Social Development).
From October 2002 to February 2013, I have been working as a Freelancer, delivering services in Graphic and Web Design, Web Development, Consultancy, QA and Software Translation among others, for several clients based mainly in Europe and North America. Main areas of work include Web Marketing, Content Management & Strategy, Information Architecture, Advertising, SEO, SEM, Social Networking, e-Commerce, Responsive Web Design, Mobile conversion and optimisation, and Mobile UI & UX.
From 1999 to 2002, I worked at Cubo Mágico, LDA., as a Web Designer/Developer, Graphic Designer, and Project Manager in a multidisciplinary team who launched, managed and maintained a 19 website network in services, information and entertainment. http://web.archive.org/web/20031122062146/http://rede.aeiou.pt/
Internet Start-Up's pioneer in Portugal, as a co-founder of Prodigio – Produções Digitais Online (a company later on purchased by the Sonae Group) and of Ideia Visual – Comunicação e Design Interactivos, Lda., a company later on integrated into Esoterica – Novas Tecnologias de Informação, S.A., the first private ISP to operate in Portugal, where I held the position of Web & Product Development Manager from 1997 to 1999
ESAD - Escola Superior de Artes e Design (Higher School of Fine Arts and Design) — 3rd Year Attendance, 1993 - 1996
The MiudosSegurosNa.Net project (it stands for KidsSafeOnThe.Net) is Portugal's pioneering and leading Internet safety project. It helps Portuguese speaking families, schools and communities in promoting online safety of kids, tweens and teens since 2003.
My responsabilities are varied but lie primarily within anything tech, from planning to execution. However, due to the very small size of the organisation, occasionally I'll put my other skills to work or simply just represent the org in events.
At First Fridays for Startups, a Google for Startups initiative aiming to help startups with much needed advice.
Mentoring junior Designers in a variety of issues from skills to career.
Providing Design Sprint facilitation to non-profit organisations as a way to de-risk big decisions and solve critical issues with their products or services.
Hospitality exchange networks aim at making the world a better place by promoting tolerance, cultural interchange and personal development values, enabling a new way of traveling, bringing travellers closer to the places they visit, as well as their culture, habits, language and above all their people.
In the specific scope of CouchSurfing.com, the world’s largest web-based non-profit International Hospitality Exchange Organisation, I have performed the role of City Ambassador since the end of 2006 and became one of the 1,600 volunteers who manage 2,5 million members and did, among others, translating, group managing, event organisation and new members welcome.