# Kris Mihalic, PhD > Product Leader, Advisor, Mentor | Samsung • Zynga • Yahoo | Solving real problems with distinctive products and services Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/krismihalicphd As a proven leader with demonstrated success at Yahoo, Zynga, and Samsung, I have devised innovative products and services for 15+ years. I’ve profoundly impacted global businesses by delivering intuitive UX, analytics, and mobile applications on the cutting edge of technology. Throughout my career, I have evolved core product portfolios to foster growth, disrupt markets, and differentiate brands. I have a natural talent for translating highly-involved business and user requirements into actionable insights. Above all, I’m a dedicated customer advocate and compassionate manager of essential business relationships. Here are some of my career highlights: ✫ Boosted BandPage’s revenues 5x by launching integration with Spotify; articulated product implementation roadmap, rallying teams across the enterprise to successfully integrate legacy content and commerce platform into Spotify’s apps. ✫ Spearheaded diverse team of 40 developing Bixby Home – an intelligent home-screen solution for Samsung phones; boosted MAU by 50M+ in the first year while defining the product vision, consumer experience, GTM strategy, and content integration. ✫ Drove sustained 20% increase in engagement and revenue by guiding cross-functional team centered on A/B testing Zynga Poker fast tables; utilized user feedback to continuously implement holistic game improvements. Key strengths: Product Leadership, Stakeholder Relationships, User Experience (UX) Design, Market Insights, Data Analytics, Team Building, User-Centered Design, Product Execution & Growth, Mobile Technology Solutions, Product & Business Development, User Interface (UI), Product Vision ## Work Experience ### Head of Consumer Products - Abbott Diabetes Care @ Abbott Jan 2023 – Present I lead the software and hardware product teams for the Libre portfolio of sensors, apps, and websites, including current on-market products, new product development, and early-stage innovation using advanced technologies (AI, XR, etc). ### Mentor, Health Tech @ Founder Institute Jan 2022 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Product development, go-to-market, and growth supporting early-stage entrepreneurs in Health Tech. ### Sr Director of Product, Content & Services @ Samsung Electronics America Jan 2015 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area At Samsung, I devised critical product strategies, development initiatives, and commercialization approaches for multi-device platforms/services. By mentoring and evolving global, cross-functional teams, we achieved significant revenue growth and delivered elegant smartphone applications. Key accomplishments: ✪ Empowered 300-400% increase in revenue for promoted games on the Galaxy Store; led team to design system featuring machine learning method that identified high-potential games based on internal/external data. ✪ Delivered 20% annual user growth for mobile services; devised strategy and partnered with analytics team to implement data-centric product development and iterative GTM approaches. ### Advisor @ STELLARES Jan 2018 – Jan 2022 Collaborated with CEO to simplify product experience, shifting the complexity from the user to the machine learning system, which resulted in increased user engagement. Offered strategic direction on the product roadmap, positioning, and go-to-market. Introduced new hire candidates and screened potential employees. ### Advisor @ Lumo Bodytech Jan 2015 – Jan 2018 Guided strategy, development, and consumer feedback of a new wearable product dedicated to runners. Provided strategic direction on the product roadmap, positioning, and go-to-market for the product portfolio. Supported hiring and organizational design for Product and UX Design teams. ### Director of Product @ BandPage Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 In this leadership role, I championed a diverse content and commerce platform for musicians. I transformed the business via substantial revenue gains. Additionally, I oversaw key product integrations with high-profile partners while defining/building content ingestion APIs. Key accomplishments: ✪ Anchored Engineering and Data Science teams to implement a scalable content classification system; leveraged machine, crowd, and staff judgments to enable high-quality partner content. ✪ Collaborated with essential partners to drive product integrations, including implementations with Spotify, Clear Channel/iHeartRadio, Vevo, and Xbox Music. ✪ Established experimentation framework and A/B testing methodologies resulting in 50% increase in user product engagement; testing solution spanned the organization’s tools, methods, and processes. ### Director of Product, Mobile & Multi-platform Games @ Zynga Jan 2011 – Jan 2014 With Zynga, I strategically aligned product strategies with exact customer needs. I oversaw all mobile games (22M DAU) and a core multi-gam portfolio that featured titles like Zynga Poker and Words with Friends. Additionally, I delivered comprehensive improvements to the game catalog based on user feedback. Key accomplishment: ✪ Designed program to comprehensively track KPIs amid development, synthesizing behavioral data and player feedback surveys; shared findings with executives to offer early gauge on potential hits with 4.5+ star-rated releases. ### Sr Design Manager, Symbian UX @ Nokia Jan 2010 – Jan 2011 I facilitated UX solutions for the Symbian platform, applications, and services while verifying that consumer needs were met. Key accomplishments: ✪ Presided over global, cross-functional teams to define and implement product UX strategies for mobile apps. ✪ Accelerated design process 50x, reducing visual assets by leading a global, cross-functional team focused on developing a tool to manage assets and UI commands. ### Sr Manager, Mobile UX and Insights @ Yahoo! Jan 2007 – Jan 2010 My time at Yahoo was spent extracting meaningful insights into the application and services portfolio spanning all mobile platforms. Key accomplishment: ✪ Increased customer satisfaction by 10% over six months; achieved this result by guiding a diverse team of product managers, designers, and researchers to drive product improvements for the all-in-one mobile app, Yahoo! Go. ### Adjunct Professor @ UC Santa Cruz Jan 2007 – Jan 2009 Taught course on “Methods and Principles of Interface Design”. ### User Experience Consultant @ PalmSource (acquired by ACCESS) Jan 2006 – Jan 2007 Consulted for the UX division focused on improving the ACCESS Linux Platform User Experience. ### Lead Mobile Experience Consultant @ ICT&S Center Jan 2004 – Jan 2007 Led UX consulting projects for global technology companies like Sony, Vodafone, PalmSource, etc. ### Associate Professor @ Fachhochschule Salzburg Jan 1996 – Jan 2007 Taught Computer Science courses to Masters candidates including Software Engineering, Object-Oriented Programming and UI Engineering. Invited to teach at the University of Staffordshire, UK. ## Education ### PhD in Human-Computer Interaction Universität Salzburg ### MS in Computer Science / Communication Science Universität Salzburg ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kmihalic - Website: http://www.samsung.com/ --- Source: https://flows.cv/krismihalicphd JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/krismihalicphd/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-05