John is passionate about improving technology and services that provide value for communities and businesses.
He has a strong interest in human behavior and psychology, often asking himself, “How do people parse the world?”
John currently works as a freelance designer. He was previously a UX strategist and designer for major financial institutions. He founded the UX practice at Pay.gov, including building a high-tech usability testing lab.
He has facilitated design sprints and design thinking workshops both in-person and virtually.
Before his UX career, John co-founded the sports marketing program at Saint John’s University, which quickly became the revenue leader in NCAA Division III athletics. He won numerous CoSIDA “Best in Nation” awards for his sports marketing work. He was a voting board member of AIGA Minnesota and co-chair of its annual Design Show.
John loves traveling the byways to photograph old neon signs, buying art for his walls, baking bread (he’s a gluten glutton), and especially loves his dog, Margot Tenenbaum.
Endorsements
“John has a real passion and commitment to the user and has no issue respectfully pushing back on team members who want to put the business benefits of an initiative above the benefits to the user.
“John was a pleasure to work with and learn from – he is a true asset to any team who wants to deliver products and services that are intended to solve a user’s problem and accomplish their primary ‘job to be done.’”
Samira Fazel Creel
Design & Research Tools Strategy & Operations Lead
CapitalOne
“John possesses the entrepreneurial spirit and the eagerness to learn new skills. He is a versatile designer balancing projects across a wide spectrum of industries from sports to fine art. Creative yet reliable, John never missed a deadline in our nine years of collaboration.”
Tom Stock
Athletic Director
Saint John’s University
“He’s well versed in enterprise design thinking and in leading remote and in-person facilitation sessions for clients, executives, stakeholders, and users. No matter the scale of the problem at hand, his design-led approach to strategic thinking is inclusive and empathetic, consistently seeking to transform and improve business outcomes.
“I appreciate his ability to manage and analyze quantitative and qualitative data, communicating synthesized findings in a meaningful fashion. Any organization would greatly value and grow from John’s design leadership, team building superpowers, and his sensible sense of humor.”
Jennifer Price
DesignOps Lead and Manager
IBM
Certifications
User Experience
UX Certificate (UXC)
Nielsen Norman Group
No. 1028063
December 2018
Courses Completed:
- Managing User Experience Strategy
- Being a UX Leader: Essential Skills for Any UX Practitioner
- Generating Big Ideas with Design Thinking
- Measuring UX and ROI
- Facilitating UX Workshops
- Service Blueprinting
Agile / Scrum
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Scrum Alliance
No. 1176681
January 2020
Design Thinking
Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner
IBM
May 2020
Participant in Design Thinking pilot program with Doug Powell at IBM Design, Austin Texas, February 2015
Service Design
Human-Centered Service Design
IDEO
No. 7501-2228073
October 2020