Shaun Gummere

Selected Experience

PORTFOLIO T Silicon Valley

Global CX and Design Lead 2023–present

• Portfolio T is the Venture Studio for a global technology and digital company operating in stealth mode.

• Mentor and coach startup teams from ideation to launch, including customer research, product & business design, and go-to-market activities.

• Define and evolve research and design methodology, metrics, and capabilities within the Venture Studio to produce breakthrough $1B+ new ventures.

• Leverage AI to deliver deeper insights, adaptive UX, and innovative product experiences as key ingredients to venture success.

• Lead and manage a global, high performing team of researchers and designers to explore, define, and design meaningful, high growth businesses and products.

CANTINA Boston, MA

Chief Experience Officer 2021–2023

SVP, Design Strategy and Research 2019–2021

VP, Experience Strategy and Service Design 2017–2019

• Established a new practice area in service design and experience strategy, which contributed to 200% account growth year-over-year. Hired, led, and managed the team.

• Led complex strategic engagements focused on innovation, digital & service design, customer-centricity, and growth for clients including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Labcorp, U.S. Air Force, Shorelight, and SES.

• Delivered workshops, research insights, strategic recommendations, and high-fidelity design solutions. Consistently won the trust of client partners, gaining the ability to influence executive sponsors and stakeholders.

• Created a culture of curiosity and innovation backed by rigorous and scalable methodology.

• Worked closely with the CEO to establish a strategic plan, rethink offerings, cross-train consultants to eliminate silos, and redesign the client journey in order to position the agency as a leading innovation consultancy.

STORY+STRUCTURE Boston, MA

Chief Design Officer 2013–2016

• Transformed the design practice from a website production shop to a human-centered design specialist, which dramatically altered the breadth and scope of projects. Managed the design and research teams.

• Supported a sales and marketing strategy that tripled the pipeline and yielded annual growth in revenue of 100% year-over-year.

• Led strategic engagements for Georgetown University, Head Start, Cal State East Bay and the healthcare robotics start-up, Insightfil.

SIMMONS UNIVERSITY Boston, MA

Senior Director, Design and Online Marketing 2001–2013

Instructor in Design, Department of Communications 1998–2010

• Established and managed an integrated digital marketing communications and design team that oversaw nine major web properties, social media, content marketing, email marketing, online advertising, SEO/SEM, and CMS administration to expand brand awareness, increase enrollment, deliver student services, and grow the endowment.

• Product owner across a portfolio of web and mobile properties. Established product vision and strategy, created alignment among stakeholders and executives, prioritized features, and defined releases.

• These efforts contributed to 12% enrollment growth and two successful capital campaigns that exceeded their goals. The marketing website was awarded a Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Gold Award.

• As a part-time faculty member, I taught several undergraduate courses, including Design for the Web, Motion Graphics, and Advanced Design. I guest lectured in a variety of courses, including Visual Communications and Portfolio, and served as an independent study advisor.

Education

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

Master of Arts in History

MIAMI UNIVERSITY

Bachelor of Philosophy cum laude in Interdisciplinary Studies

Skills

LEADERSHIP

• Leadership & People Management: Proven ability to manage, mentor and coach teams to inspire high performance. Strong interpersonal skills to influence key stakeholders and gain buy-in.

• Strategic Thinker: Adept at analyzing complex business and customer experience challenges and developing innovative yet pragmatic solutions. This includes skills like insights research, critical thinking, design thinking, and strategic analysis.

• Relationship Building: Skilled at developing trusted advisor relationships with executives and effectively navigating organizational politics. Works across silos to build relationships of trust.

• Climbing the Ladder of Abstraction: Keeps an eye on the strategic outcome while diving deep into the details. A friend referred to this as the ability to climb up and down the ladder of abstraction. I often call it ‘eyes on the prize.’

COMMUNICATIONS

• Storytelling: Strong ability to make complex ideas clear and persuade through engaging storytelling and visual communication.

• Public Speaking & Presentation: Excellent presentation and facilitation skills. Comfortable in small groups and large gatherings.

• Writing: Clear and compelling writer for the web, marketing communications, and complex longer-form articles.

DESIGN

• Insights Research: Wide and deep expertise in primary and secondary qualitative research and analysis, including qualitative interviews, co-design, observation, and related methodologies. Effectively combines qualitative and quantitative research to derive data-driven insights.

• Design & Design Thinking: Deep expertise in design thinking principles, service design, UX design and human-centered design. Leverages skills to uncover user needs, ideate innovative solutions, and iterate and test prototypes from low- to high-fidelity. Comfortable with ambiguity and the process to move from insights to compelling, market-ready solution.

• Visual and UX Design: Decades of hands-on design experience creating engaging websites and mobile apps. Applies user insights and evaluative research methods throughout the product development lifecycle.

• Product and Service Design: Wide experience delivering the holistic, end-to-end design of product and service experiences. Expertise in customer journeymapping, service blueprinting, and the application of actionable metrics to deliver engaging and delightful customer experiences.

• Branding and Marketing: Understands the power of brand and how to articulate and give it structure. Experience with marketing communications, SEO/SEM, and content marketing.

• Creative Direction: Effective application of guidance so the design team retains a creative spark and can produce compelling work.

PRODUCT & CX

• Strategy & Vision: Ability to formulate and communicate a compelling strategy and vision to guide product and CX.

• Collaboration & Partnership: Highly collaborative and adept at building relationships among stakeholders, customers, and internal teams.

• Product Development: Deep understanding of product lifecycle management from ideation, design, development, launch, and iteration.

• Customer-Centric: Obsessed with deeply understanding customer needs and adept at a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to make data-informed choices. Designs omnichannel experiences that are seamless across customer touchpoints. Adept at personalizing the customer experience.

• Front-stage/Back-stage Orchestration: Expert in the design and measurement of front-stage customer journeys as well as the alignment, incentives, and efficiencies to ensure back-stage employee workflows meet customer needs and expectations.

• Innovation Mindset: Encourages exploration, ideation, and creative problem solving. Open to new approaches and technology to propel the product and customer experience forward.

SOFTWARE

• Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Microsoft Office, Google Suite, and related tools and software.