Company: Nutrien Ag Solutions.

Role: Director of User Experience Design and Research.

Time: 2.5 years.

Responsibilities: Spearheading digital and operational transformation, setting experience vision, OKRs, and strategies, and leading a team to advocate and evangelize user-centered design.

Team: 20-member UX Design and Research team within a 300-person digital group.

Problem/Challenge

Nutrien Ag Solutions faced significant hurdles with no leader, high workload, and no direction.

Low employee morale and satisfaction.
Team integration and culture clash at all levels due to acquisition of ag startup
Scarce customer and user research in product development process.
Disparate design practices, and poor usability across platforms.
Lacking a cohesive design and UX research culture.
Inconsistent and incoherent experiences across web and mobile platforms

Outcomes and Impact

Successfully led organization and operational transformation and change management, eliminating silos between practice areas, increasing collaboration by 100%.
Created durable and autonomous dual track agile and empowered product teams aligned with product areas and OKRs.
Led executive leadership and digital leadership team annual planning workshops increasing visibility of UX research team and aligning OKRs, strategies and roadmaps to solving real customer and user needs and paint points.
Implemented modern software practices, enhancing team efficiency and employee satisfaction improving retention to 90%.
Grew the UX team by 122% and built UX Research practice significantly reducing workload, stress, and time to value.
Established a global design system and UX Acceptance Criteria, reducing design debt by 53% and increasing team velocity by 34%.
Effectively managed a $2.5m budget, and realized $800k in savings consolidating design tools.
Increased monthly e-commerce engagement by 38% and revenue by 378% through comprehensive UX audit, testing and UX improvements.
Established a UX research practice and continuous discovery program, leading to better decision-making and reduced risk.