“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
Oddly, I still can't validate who owns this quote, but I like it.
As an Experience Design Leader, I have delivered user-centered solutions for over 15+ years across global clients within a variety of industries. I have led multi-level creative teams (Research, UX, Design, Content, and Technology) to deliver conversion-based marketing solutions to meet client and business goals. As a versatile leader, I have helped organizations understand their users’ needs, defined critical conversion points, established complex design systems, and have helped mentor strong creative talent. I would love the opportunity to apply these skills to your team and make an immediate impact on your organization.
References
MANESH SAMUEL JOHN, UX LEADERSHIP AT GOOGLE
Mike was a pleasure to work with, a true leader in every sense. During my formative years as a designer, Mike’s leadership and guidance as my Manager helped me grow my chops and do the best work of my career. His understanding of the product, customer landscape and business helped rally the team around what to solve for and how best to! Mike also forged strong cross-functional partnerships with Product & Engineering teams and ensured a healthy culture. He always advocated for the team to think without limitations and solve problems with creativity and ease. He was always approachable, friendly and mentored to get the best out of every individual in the team. Be it a customer conversation, design critique or 1:1 review, he established his forte as a design leader providing wonderful feedback on what we did great and what we could get better at. His timely feedback constantly helped me focus on growing as a better designer. I would highly recommend Mike to lead and transform any design organization!
ELAINE ZHAO, LEAD DESIGNER AT RIPPLING
Michael is a leader that truly holds the entire team together. He is always there guiding the roadmap, hearing different voices, exploring the possibilities, communicating the ideas, and striving to help everyone succeed. His rich experience across product strategy, design, marketing, and customer management comes together into a highly creative and efficient approach to solving any complicated problem. He is a unicorn leader that would be a tremendous value to any team!
PEICHI YANG, LEAD DESIGNER AT GOODRX
Michael was my manager for two years as a senior designer on an international corporate website redesign project. He has extensive knowledge and expertise in building and shipping large scale products. His devotion to the quality of design helped drive the team to not only meeting delivery goals, but often exceeding client expectations. He always had a good pulse on the appropriate process and can clearly outline the goal and jobs to be done for the team—we could always trust his guidance during any unforeseen challenges along the way. As a manager, his personable leadership style and natural relationship-building skills made him an impactful leader. He is a great listener, a great communicator, and he always led by example. I highly recommended Michael as a product design manager on any team that needs a trustworthy leader who can deliver and can foster a great team.
MONICA GENEZA, BUSINESS OPERATIONS MANAGER AT EVERLAW
During our time together at BrightEdge, I always saw Michael as a leader and hoped to emulate some of his interpersonal, conflict management, and communication skills. Frankly, it’s because he cares. I would immediately turn to Michael for professional advice; and because of the relationship and trust that we’ve built I still call on him today. He takes the time to listen, relate, and offer actionable steps to navigate through a situation.
One thing I’d like to highlight about Michael is his emotional intelligence. My team faced overwhelming deliverables which trickled into the working culture. Michael was able to come in and run a workshop to help with conflict management in a safe environment. In this quick, onsite event he created a platform for team members to feel seen, heard, acknowledged, and like they provided value. I truly am thankful for my time at BrightEdge because I was able to work alongside Michael and have the pleasure of calling him a friend today.
NIKOLA DOSEV, GROWTH PRODUCT MANAGER AT SKYSLOPE
Michael was an instrumental servant leader on the team that we lead together at BrightEdge Technologies. He joined the team as a senior leader and helped me and my team scale a new product from inception with just 2 small customers to a major Business unit which helped improve retention by over 10% YoY.
During the 3 years I worked with Michael, he advised me on team leadership, hiring and also provided invaluable personal & professional guidance. In addition, Michael was constantly able to take advantage of his design and UX background to guide me and more junior design team members through developing professional sales and marketing assets, Fortune-500 worthy B2B software product experiences and secure major contracts with Tyndale, Morningstar, Docusign and Walmart/Sam’s Club.
JOHN CARSTENS, EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT DDB
Mikey Chiong is an impressive design thinker/practitioner/leader who gives equal attention to beauty and utility. Arresting visuals and intuitive systems. The visceral and the functional. His sense of humor, however, is heavily weighted toward the scatological—the real reason we got along so well. He's also a culture builder, attentive supervisor, generous collaborator, and equal opportunity enthusiast of all ball sports (dodge, kick, bocce, tether, basket, soft, bowling, etc.). Look for big things from this guy.