Denis Suhopoljac, is a Vancouver based design director. For over a decade he has had the honour of leading, mentoring and empowering design teams to solve complex and ambiguous problems.
He is currently growing a product design team at Asana. This team builds experiences across payments, pricing & packaging, new revenue and other strategic programs to support Asana's rapidly growing business.
“I was very fortunate to work with Denis for about 2 years at Unbounce. He has a deep understanding of creative and how to translate it into effective designs. His skill-set spans many areas of design from UX/UI, creative campaigns, branding and illustration. He's a skilled researcher capable of backing up any design decision with both qualitative and quantitative insights. He is a collaborator and leader that doesn’t cease to inspires the team. On top of all that he's just a great person and pleasure to be around.”
- Shawna Jones
Product Design Lead @Unbounce
“What I'll always remember about working with Denis is how much I admire his ability as a mentor and leader for me at my time at Unbounce. Denis brings people together and creates safe environments for ideas and creativity to flourish, and his passion and meticulousness for his work inspires others to do their best work. Denis is a straight shooter who creates genuine connections and believes in the potential of people. I believe he will be a change maker and asset to any team he joins and I look forward to working with him again.”
Jordana Mah -
Senior Product Manager @PayByPhone
Denis has a rare ability to define a strategy through research andbring a product vision to life! He can weave a compelling user-centric story that will engage, inspire and motivate teams to make it a reality. Besides his abilities as a UX practitioner, he is a team player and fun to work with.
- Chris Brownlee
Senior Director of Product Management @Unbounce
Experience
Director of Design, Revenue, Asana
March 2022 – Present
Grow, mentor, and lead a talented team of Product Designers across San Francisco and Vancouver offices. Partner with cross functional partners to establish vision, strategy, metrics, and goals for the revenue organization. Help define strategy, objectives and set the vision for the user experience to meet customer and business needs. Guide your team and oversee multiple streams of work to deliver a cohesive customer experience by connecting dots between cross-org products. Be the champion for product excellence.
Director of Design, PayByPhone | Volkswagen
Feb 2020 – Feb 2022
Defining the next generation of PayByPhone products and the user experience vision. Focused on establishing and evolving design strategy, human-centered design practices, processes, tools and functions. Leading, coaching, mentoring and empowering a growing user experience team.
Design Director, Unbounce
Oct 2016 – Feb 2020
Defining all concept development for R&D projects and discovering customer value. Coaching, mentoring and empowering a growing user experience team. Accountable for the creation of brand standards, voice and tone and a unified design system.
Art Director, Unbounce
Dec 2011 – Oct 2016
Mentor, Vancouver Film School
May 2014 – May 2016
Creative Director, Zeros 2 Heroes Media
Jan 2010 – Dec 2011
Creative Director, Mainframe Studios
Oct 2007 – Jan 2010
Lead Designer, Riptown Media
Aug 2004 – Oct 2007
Senior Designer, Kubix Media
Jul 2003 – Aug 2004
Interface Designer, Blast Radius
Feb 2003 – Jul 2003
Coaching & Leadership
Global Leadership Programme
2020 – Adaptis
Personal Leadership and how to build and shape resilience through change. Developing talent and building coaching habits in your teams.
The Leader's Discipline
2019 – The Roy Group
Increase their ability and confidence in giving and receiving honest feedback. Practice and build on their ability to coach leaders and teams of leaders.
Leadership Development
2015 – Virtus
Discover and leverage leadership and team strengths, while uncovering blind spots and developing plans to match.
“Denis and I have had the pleasure of knowing each other for the past 15 years. What sets Denis apart from other UX professionals is three things;
(1) Business value. Denis invests in understanding the business model and levers in an organization. He has the benefit of working in multiple industries and environments, and he can intuitively connect the dots between customer needs and business ROI
(2) A relentless pursuit of the craft. He is a leader who understands practice is the path to mastery, and he has committed himself wholeheartedly in the pursuit of excellence. He expects it of himself and mentors others to form habits that become foundations for fruitful careers.
(3) Denis understands what is most important. Below that candid exterior lives a genuine, caring, and fiercely loyal leader. He gives his time freely to support and engage with the local design community- hosting events, donating artwork to raise money for charities, and mentoring students enrolled in local design schools. He is a leader with incredible character and reliability, who is always willing to support those around him.
If you need a UX leader to stand shoulder to shoulder with while in the trenches, then I would look no further, you will not find someone more talented or more committed.
I look forward to working with Denis again in the future!”
- Miles Nurse
Chief Product Officer @Ubersuggest
Experiments
I enjoy exploring beyond my core capabilities and running experiments and explorations as a way to learn something new. Check out my experiment case studies on designing a flag, typeface or apparel.
Art
In my spare time a good chunk of my art works are comissions. Most of my work is influenced by movies and television shows. However, at times my renderings can take on more sinister tones influenced by mythology and heavy metal music.