Denis Suhopoljac, is a Vancouver based design director with expertise in brand and user experience. For over a decade he has had a privilege of leading, mentoring and empowering growing design teams to deliver exceptional work. Formerly Unbounce, Rainmaker, Mainframe, Blast Radius & Mentor @VFS.
He is currently focused on defining a future state of products and services @PayByPhone | Volkswagen through strategy, research and design.
His background as a holistic designer highlights his deep rooted design instincts and technical understanding. His ability to apply designing thinking enables him to help designers solve complex problems, even in the most ambiguous of situations.
Experience
Director of Design, PayByPhone | Volkswagen
Feb 2020 – Present
Establish and evolve the design strategy and vision for PayByPhone’s products and services. Collaborate with product leadership to derive mid and short-term initiatives that align with our product strategy. Ensure the success of the design work by measuring customer value and the impact on the business. Lead, mentor, and empower a growing design team to deliver exceptional work. Recruit, interview, and hire to ensure that teams and projects are appropriately staffed and that the work is balanced for the team. Partner with product management and development leadership to represent the design team, facilitate design discussions, and give feedback in planning and product channels. Work with the PMO to develop and manage project timelines, ensuring deadlines are met and the team is set up for success. Evangelize the design process and build a design first approach to solving problems.
Design Director, Unbounce
Oct 2016 – Feb 2020
Championing customer experience & UX. Drive concept development inside Unbounce R&D projects. Accountable for the creation of brand standards, voice and tone and a unified design system. Mentorship for product designers. Eveangilize prototyped concepts. Lead brainstorm sessions, design sprints and design reviews.
Art Director, Unbounce
Dec 2011 – Oct 2016
Drive brand recognition and experience by working closely with marketing leads. Create a consistent brand experience across every point of the customer lifecycle. Grow, mentor and coach the creative team. Responsible for monitoring and maintaining visibility of design tasks.
Creative Director, Zeros 2 Heroes Media
Jan 2010 – Dec 2011
Manage the UX team and brand execution for the company, partners and clients. Work with team leads to define the scope and vision for each project or campaign. Coordinate the requirements of the creative teams to ensure a successful execution of every project or campaign. Work with the producer to ensure that resources are adequate and arranged in advance of production requirements. Work with president on business development and marketing initiatives.
Creative Director, Rainmaker Entertainment
Oct 2007 – Jan2010
Leading the corporate/publicity Art Department to create design materials for a variety of media, including broadcast, web and print. Lead brand development for new IP in conjunction with the Director of Development. Establish Rainmaker Entertainment branding in conjunction with the Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of Development.
Area Of Expertise
Brand Strategy
A brand strategy enables a business to establish clarity. It grounds everything an organization creates and what they stand for.
Product Strategy
Identifies core customer problems and the appropriate product revenue levers. It establishes the north star in order to evolve a product and grow market share.
Innovation
Deploys user insights, exploits new technologies and leverages market trends. Defines a future experience by building and testing solutions for specific problems systematically, collaboratively and iteratively across disciplines.
Brand Guidelines
A set of building blocks of brand positioning, architecture and design. It drives brand consistency and encourages creative risks.
Design Systems
A set of building blocks of interaction and interface design at scale. It drives product consistency and encourages design evolution.
User Research
Portrays the fundamental needs of a customer. Underpins design decisions by continuously unearthing insights around goals, needs, motivations of customers.
Coaching & Leadership
Coaching & Leadership
2020
Global Leadership Programme
- Strength Deployment Inventory [SDI] & Action Learning Set [ALS].
- Personal Leadership and how to build and shape resilience through change.
- Working with others and forming strategic alliances.
- Developiing talent and building coaching habits in your teams.
- Building and executing on business strategy.
2019
The Leader's Discipline
- Notice how mental state influences performance, learning and engagement
- Practice and build on their ability to coach leaders and teams of leaders
- Investigate when coaching is most effective
- Address current leadership issues
- Increase their ability and confidence in giving and receiving honest feedback
2015
Leadership Development
- Leadership effectiveness analyses and personality profiling
- Team and emotional intelligence assessments.
- Discover and leverage your leadership and team strengths.
- Uncover blind spots, and create development plans to match.
- Uncover the roadblocks so you can truly function as a high-performance team.
- Model the types of leadership behaviours you want to see throughout your organization.
↓ Latest
Instagram
Denis loves to draw in his spare time. Some of his latest artwork can be found on his Instagram account @heysuho.
