Bio

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.

Global Leadership Programme
Adaptis
2020

• Strength Deployment Inventory [SDI]
• Action Learning Set [ALS]

• Personal Leadership

• Resilience Through Change

• Working With Others

• Developing Talent

• Building Business Strategy

• Executing Business Strategy 
  
  

The Leader's Discipline
The Roy Group
2019

• 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
  
  

Leadership Development
Virtus
2015

• Leadership effectiveness analyses, personality profiling, team assessments, and emotional intelligence assessments.
• Discover and leverage your leadership and team strengths, uncover blind spots, and create development plans to match.
  
• Uncover the roadblocks that are getting in the way so you can truly function as a high-performance team and model the types of leadership behaviours you want to see throughout your organization.
  

User Experience
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Research
Conceptualization
Ideation
System modeling
UI design
Prototyping
Testing and validation
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Art Direction
Creative Direction

Accolades

Landing Page Sessions - BCAMA
Digital Agency Day - One Page Love
Animism: The Gods’ Lake - Leo Awards
Animism: The Gods’ Lake - SXSW Interactive
A ReBoot Relaunch - PopVox Awards
Bodog Fight - Interactive Media Awards
Fabrika - RES 72