# Kevin O'Connell > Product Design Leader | ex Microsoft, Cisco, McCann Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/kevinoconnell I currently lead the design of HSB's (a Munich Re company) cybersecurity SaaS applications, which help businesses and individuals protect themselves through assessment, monitoring, training, and process enablement.Prior to HSB's acquisition of Zeguro, I was the founding product designer at DataFox (now Oracle), ensuring venture capital, private equity, sales, and marketing organizations easily find and prioritize their target companies. I design useful, intuitive, and engaging products built from a human-centered perspective. I am particularly interested in exploring how emergent technologies can assist with learning and growth. ## Work Experience ### Product Design Lead @ HSB - Hartford Steam Boiler Jan 2021 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Product Design Lead, Global Insurance Innovation Group. Heading design of B2B and B2C cybersecurity SaaS applications. • 2nd consecutive successful startup exit as founding designer. Acquired by HSB, a Munich Re company, 2021. • Collaborating closely with international teams to design, build, launch, and update two B2B and consumer applications for desktop, tablet, and mobile, along with backoffice operations/logistics • Spearheading continuous usability studies • Overseeing the creation and maintenance of our design system and component library • Brand development • Creative direction • Visual design • Copywriting ### Product Designer @ Zeguro Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area Sole designer of Zeguro's Cyber Safety B2B SaaS platform pairing cyber insurance with risk management tools and services • Synthesized customer and business needs to create highly effective, unique, easy to use, and engaging cybersecurity platform for SMBs • Designed the direct-to-consumer (D2C) insurance underwriting and quote-to-cash (Q2C) experiences • Accounted for disparate needs of end-insureds, underwriters, and admins • Creative direction and brand development • Acquired by HSB November, 2021 ### Product Designer @ DataFox Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area DataFox (acquired by Oracle in October 2018) is an AI-powered business intelligence platform that helps venture capital, sales, and marketing teams find and prioritize interesting companies. I was the sole product designer of the platform. A notable success was the account scoring feature I designed, which was responsible for 75% of the company's ARR. • Conducted user research, brainstorming sessions • Created wireframes and user flows • Built prototypes, and tested them with customers • Established the design system • Worked closely with PMs, founders, engineering, sales, marketing, and the customer success team to ensure our designs met customer and business needs. • I also designed the machine learning admin portal to power our recommendations ### Senior Product Designer @ Kahuna Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Redwood City, California At Kahuna, I worked closely with product management and the design team to deliver innovative designs for marketing automation across various channels such as push notifications, email, SMS, and in-app messaging. I interviewed marketing professionals, developed personas, and created wireframes and interactive prototypes. ### Interaction Designer (Freelance) @ Autodesk Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Collaborated with the Account team to design the subscriber experience during the transition to Autodesk’s SaaS model. I created user flows, wireframes, journey maps, and prototypes. I also designed and conducted usability studies to get customer feedback on our designs. ### Sr UX Designer @ The Climate Corporation Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco, California I owned the design of Climate's (now Bayer) parametric crop insurance platform, starting at zero. I conducted extensive user research, and collaborated closely with the product, engineering, strategy, and design teams. We built a successful ag insurance platform that accounted for the various needs of agents, claims adjusters, end-insureds, underwriters, sales, and customer success, and integrated with a complex IoT platform for enterprise farmers. ### UX Designer (freelance) @ The Climate Corporation Jan 2014 – Jan 2014 | San Francisco, California Worked closely with customers, and across teams, to ensure seamless, engaging and usable experiences for Cimate's IoT crop insurance and agronomy platforms. User research and design. Rapid prototyping and user testing. ### Freelance UX Designer @ Ascendwave Jan 2004 – Jan 2014 | San Francisco As a freelance designer I worked with top-notch clients... • At AtHoc (now Blackberry), I helped design the emergency mass notification platform that is used by the U.S. Air Force • Collaborated with the team at The Climate Corporation (now Bayer) to build crop insurance and IoT platforms for farmers • At Cisco I designed enterprise collaboration and consumer telepresence platforms. • I worked with the Microsoft Office for Mac team to create interactive prototypes for usability testing. • The Wall Street Journal had their largest number of hits to date on their website thanks to my interactive map of the invasion of Iraq. • Janet Jackson loved the motion graphics I did for her website. • I single-handedly redesigned the J.Crew website. • I designed the Intel Pentium Processor product launch. ### Senior User Experience Designer (Contract) @ AtHoc Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | San Mateo, CA At AtHoc (acquired by Blackberry), I collaborated with the executive, product management, engineering, marketing, and design teams to build the emergency alerting system used by the U.S. Air Force. • Interviewed users and SMEs, created personas and scenarios • Interaction design • Wireframes and user flows • Visual design • Prototyping in HTML/Javascript and After Effects • Created pattern and component libraries ### User Experience Designer @ Cisco Jan 2011 – Jan 2012 | San Jose, CA While with Cisco’s Collaboration Business Technologies business unit, I designed applications for enterprise social media and collaboration. • Wireframes and prototypes • Designed usability studies • Drafted business proposals ### User Experience Designer @ Microsoft Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 | Mountain View, CA At Microsoft, I worked as part of the Office for Mac team, collaborating closely with design leads, product managers, and researchers. • Produced functional prototypes and mockups • Built interactive help modules for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint ### User Experience Designer @ Whipsaw Jan 2008 – Jan 2008 | San Jose, CA UX design for Cisco's consumer telepresence system. Collaborated with industrial and interaction designers. Created wireframes, user flows, and prototypes. ### Freelance UX designer / prototyper @ SAP Jan 2007 – Jan 2007 I built, and helped design, the SAP platform demo that was shown at Sapphire, their annual user conference. ### Interactive Designer @ McCann Erickson Jan 2005 – Jan 2007 | San Francisco, CA Worked with the creative team on major advertising campaigns for Microsoft. Designed and built websites, ad banners, and pitches. Worked closely with ECDs, CDs, ADs, copywriters, and video editors to create impactful, inspiring, and memorable experiences. ### Interactive Art Director @ Newsweek Jan 2004 – Jan 2005 | New York, NY Sole interactive designer at Newsweek. As part of the Sales and Marketing group, I created engaging, and effective interactive experiences leveraging animation, video, and original music. ### Interactive Designer @ The Wall Street Journal Jan 2003 – Jan 2003 | New York, NY Designed, developed, and illustrated interactive news features, including coverage of the invasion of Iraq. Worked with editors and journalists to clearly and elegantly communicate breaking news stories. ### Interactive Designer @ Macromedia Jan 1998 – Jan 1999 | San Francisco, CA Designed product launches, interactive demos, iconography, and marketing collateral using an array of software and techniques. ## Education ### BFA in Fine Art, Minor in Art History Pratt Institute ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mediaferret - Website: http://www.ascendwave.com - Website: http://www.flickr.com/nomadphoto --- Source: https://flows.cv/kevinoconnell JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/kevinoconnell/resume.json Last updated: 2026-02-23