An experienced design leader.
A Creative generator. Different thinker.
Effective communicator. Momentum Maker.
ABOUT DANE HOWARD
I am a strategic design leader & entrepreneur. I’ve led globally distributed teams for world class products, services and brands, while focusing on scaling the design process across multiple business domains.
I’ve had the pleasure to build, grow & lead teams for both start-ups and big companies. I co-founded a start-up in 2006, which was acquired in 2008 by eBay. I know how to build shareholder value. I love to mine the experience potential in companies, and I’ve been told I’m a ‘humble leader driven by purpose’.
I have worked on an international scale with CEO’s and Product leadership. I have played principle design, operational and leadership roles for Microsoft, BMW, Major League Baseball, Scient, Quokka Sports, NBCOlympics, Alias/Wavefront, eBay, Trov, Samsung NEXT, and Amazon. I have built and launched global experiences in several countries, and have garnered several prestigious awards in design & marketing.
I believe that stories build in strength with re-telling. It is the product & brand stories that become the reason we all move forward together.
I am an author, speaker, photographer, designer, and father. I am the author of ‘The Future of Memories‘ and advisor to ‘standbeautiful.me‘, an anti-bullying movement promoting the acceptance of self and others.
I speak on design and culture transformation. It’s nice to meet you.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Amazon
Head of UX Design & Research (Aug 2020 – Present)
Amazon Care – Lead and Manage a team of UX Designers & Researchers.
Samsung NEXT
Global Head of Design & Product Experience (May 2018 – June 2020)
As Global head of Design, I am responsible to grow, mentor and lead the product design & user research teams, currently located in Tel Aviv, New York, UK, Russia and San Francisco. I help drive the full lifecycle of product experiences from early stage narratives and prototypes to the product design and delivery end to end. We do this as a highly distributed design team working cross-functionally across 15 timezones.
I lead design & user research for both B2B and B2C products in areas of:
– Distributed Computing & Artificial Intelligence (dis.co)
– Food Experiences (whisk.com)
– Augmented Reality and Spatial Computing
– Early stage Products & POCs
Samsung NEXT champions builders and founders inventing a more purposeful future. Our suite of software and services allow us to meet and support innovators wherever they are, at any stage in the life-cycle. We build software and services that turn ideas into products, grow products into businesses, and scale businesses that leverage and transform the Samsung ecosystem.
Trōv
Chief Experience Officer (Aug 2015 – Feb 2018)
Global Head of Design, Product & Marketing for Trov.
Trov is the world’s first on-demand insurance for single items. We’re on a mission to make protecting your things simple and flexible, so you can enjoy them without worrying about rigid policies and confusing fine print.
With Trōv, you’ll be able to insure just the things you want—exactly when you want—entirely from your phone.
eBay, Inc.
Director, Global Brand Experience & Design, eBay Inc.
(Jan 2013 – Apr 2015)
Culture: Responsible for leading the company-wide effort for cultural change for ebay inc. across all of ebay’s design teams. Appointed by the CEO to work with John Maeda on a four-pillar initiative to activate design, grow community and build a strong talent pipeline. A company-wide POV on design was led and launched at: ebay.com/design, and is now a case study at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Brand: Responsible to translate business objectives into compelling visual stories and experiences across multiple mediums and environments across the eBay inc. portfolio.
Director, Verticals & PreVIZ Design, eBay Marketplaces
(Oct 2008 – Jan 2013)
eBay Mobile (2008-2009)
One of First UX designers on eBay Mobile – Responsible to Design & Manage the UX for initial iPhone & iPad releases. Grew the design/UX team through explosive growth and over $2B in GMV.
Verticals: Led a design team of 30 across eBay’s vertical businesses, including Fashion, Motors and Electronics
PreVIZ – Successfully grew & led a new Pre-Visualization Design practice for eBay. Hired and led a team of 5, through pro-active design labs & workshops. Responsible to lead eBay product groups through a process of solving business problems by visualizing them.
- Successfully completed 53 PreVIZ projects across the company across M&A, HR and several product teams.
- Inventor, 8 Patents in User interface & software architecture
VUVOX – Principal & co-founder. Chief Product Officer
(May 2006 – January 2011) – Acquired by eBay, June 2008.
VUVOX was a media creation and sharing platform.
Successfully raised seed capital and built product team. Designed, built & managed VUVOX.com, brand, product & partnerships.
Successfully positioned company for acquisition to eBay in June 2008.
Microsoft Corporation
(October 2001 – April 2006)
UX Design Lead, Mobile & Embedded Devices
Microsoft Mobile Division, Redmond, WA
Team leader for ‘Connected’ Experiences & Media
Design Manager, Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT)
October 2001 – Jan 2005. Microsoft Research, WA
Built and led a cross-disciplinary team of designers responsible for a new set of mobile Microsoft Products. Led the design of the entire business of SPOT including product development, marketing, industrial design and business development.
- Inventor, 8 Patents in User interface & software architecture
- Inventor, 4 Patents in Mechanical & Industrial Design
EDUCATION
Art Center College of Design. (1992-1994) Pasadena, CA , BFA program in Graphic / Interactive Design.
Westmont College. (1990-1992) Santa Barbara, CA, BFA program, Fine Art.
LINKS & PRESS
Fast Company: Six Bite-Sized Innovation Lessons From Ebay’s New Design Think Tank,
Dane Howard’s Teaches design & preVIZ on LinkedIn
Lynda.com: Pitching Projects and Products to Executives
Dane is the closest thing to a zen master that I’ve had the good fortune to work with. He’s a leader with an innate ability to get dozens of creative individuals to move quickly in multiple directions yet arrive at the same place. And the resulting work impresses CEOs and design luminaries.
Dane has done the impossible…he helped make insurance cool. As chief experience officer, Dane gave design a seat at the table and saw to it that product design, marketing, business development, company culture – EVERYTHING – was considered through the lens of design thinking at Trōv. He’s a thoughtful leader that can effortlessly shift between executive level business and design ideation.
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- Design Leadership 92%
- Mobile Design 83%
- Speaking 72%
- Project Experience 67%