The hard part

isn't making something.

is making the right something.

That's the problem I solve. Less guessing, dart throwing, and iterating. More listening, learning, and nailing it.

I lead teams that create value for the people who use them.

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Expertise

Identifying the effort worth making.

What matters most is making life easier for people in their real lives. In stadiums, hospitals, at home, or on the side of the road, the interaction between people and their environment matters just as much as what a screen can do.

I specialize in understanding what drives behaviors and decisions when people experience a service or product. The interdisciplinary teams I lead use that context to create evidence-backed strategies built to hold up in the real world, before roadmaps are in place, and design experiences that are built not just to launch, but to generate the best outcomes for the customer and the business.

Approach

Frameworks and methods I rely on.

When I'm brought in, I start by understanding what's known and what's missing, because the real problem usually lives in the gap. These are the tools I rely on to cut through ambiguity and find something that creates value.

Desirability · Feasibility · Viability

Most initiatives fail because they lean too heavily on one and ignore the others.

Desirability asks if people will benefit, and why.

Feasibility asks if it can be built and sustained.

Viability asks if it’s worth doing.

Start with desirability to make something people actually care about. Assess Feasibility and Viability to avoid expensive mistakes downstream.

Jobs to Be Done &
Journey Mapping

People don’t want products. They want to experience something that matters to them.

JTBD helps uncover what’s driving behavior and what people are actually trying to do.

Layering this over journey maps makes it easier to see where things break down and where there’s real opportunity.

Design Thinking &
Service Design

Design thinking is a way to move from an unclear problem to something testable.

Service design expands that across the full experience: channels, people, environments, procedures, and systems.

Together, they help make sense of what’s happening and what a better version could look like.

automation

My AI experience

As the engine

I use AI where it improves the experience, and avoid it where it doesn’t.

This principle developed during my work on digital therapeutics, where replacing people outright wasn’t viable. Instead, AI handled clear decisions while nuanced situations stayed with experts.

The same principle still applies.

For prototyping

Working prototypes can be built quickly using AI as an engineering partner.

Mockups have their place, but functional prototypes sometimes surface real needs faster. They change how decisions are made and increase confidence before investments are made.

In research & synthesis

AI is great for moving quickly through large volumes of information like interview transcripts, secondary research, and large datasets.

It handles the parts that don’t require judgment, so more time is spent interpreting, deciding, and acting.

The result is better synthesis, not fewer people.

Work

Some of my favorite projects.

Three examples of bringing clarity to complex problems and turning them into something that creates real value for both the business and the customer.

Major League Baseball · Venue Commerce · 2025

Reframing how the league thinks about the fan experience.

What looks like a logistics problem on the surface often isn't. Across four ballparks and hundreds of fan conversations, the issue turned out to be something else entirely.

That shift changed how the league thinks about the concourse experience and where they're investing next.

Read the case study →

Johnson & Johnson · App-Based Behavior Change · 2016

From patient living rooms to clinical trial.

Two products advanced to clinical trial. The key finding: most health interventions are designed around what clinicians want patients to do, not what patients can actually sustain.

Reframing the problem around real behavior changed what was built and what moved forward.

Read the case study →

Irminsul · AI-Driven Gaming Guide · 2026

Making a rich gaming experience less of a burden.

Five million players a day and none of the right tools. Video games have gotten incredibly rich but incredibly complicated.

Using my kids as Alpha testers and AI as an engineering partner, I identified the need, built a working product, validated the idea in a week. Now I am polishing the UI and getting it ready for the App Store.

Read the case study →
About

Solving problems since 1998.

My career started with websites and human-machine interfaces, moved into digital products and behavioral research, and now centers on helping organizations understand what’s actually happening and what’s worth doing, before committing to a direction.

I’m drawn to problems with a physical dimension. How a service unfolds across space, and where design intention breaks down in real life, is where the most meaningful work tends to be. I’ve led interdisciplinary teams across Healthcare, Sports & Entertainment, Automotive, Financial Services, Retail, Media, Technology, Non-Profits, and Education; both in-house and at agencies.

I am the kind of person who may have too many hobbies. I train at a local archery academy with my daughters, I’ve been restoring a 1973 Datsun 240Z for several years (see it here and get more detail here). I run a club for car enthusiasts called South Mountain Drivers Club. I have nearly five hundred vinyl records, five vintage guitars, three cats, one Scotch Collie, and have lived in Maplewood, NJ, for fourteen years.

MLB
Johnson & Johnson
Ford
Toyota
Emirates
Target
General Electric
HBO
NBCU
USMA West Point
Citi
New York State
Contact

If you're working on something hard, it’s worth a conversation.

If understanding people is treated as a real input to strategy, not an afterthought, and decisions are shaped by that understanding, we should talk.

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Based in Maplewood, NJ · Currently available for full-time or consulting roles at the Senior Director to VP level · New York metro or remote