# Sean Ross > Silicon Valley Design Leader | VP Design @BlackRock | AI Whisperer | Design Consultant | Moving the needle by inventing solutions to human problems | Design alum @ eBay, Yahoo! | seanrosscreative.com Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/seanross High impact, award-winning results in product, design & marketing innovation. Proven leader of cross-functional teams that bring successful companies and products to market to scale beyond expectation. Seasoned growth-focused design leader with exceptional EQ, mentoring and coaching capacities—with the comprehensive, all-hands-on-deck skillset of an IC producer, across multiple disciplines. • Head of Design responsible for end-to-end product launches (Mobile, Desktop) of two successful digital music services with edgy brands & over 2 million paid subscribers, directly responsible for increased revenue & market share (Muve Music/Cricket Mobile, Boinc/Rupert Murdoch). • Won Gartner’s Cool New Product award in 2019 for Espressive, a truly innovative consumer-friendly AI-driven Enterprise SaaS product. • Head of Design for TechTV (Paul Allen/Vulcan Ventures/Softbank) leading a cross-functional (Design + Dev) team of 15-20 directs. Responsible for major product and brand initiatives, daily content supporting over 2 million daily unique visitors, cross-medium (TV/Web) product, content, marketing and brand development, winning multiple industry awards. • Generated significant revenue for clients through unique ad campaigns for Microsoft, Circuit City, Dice, Logitech, Best Buy, and more. • My work has been covered in the UK Guardian, The Independent, and leading online design publication It’snicethat. • Selected by the US National Science Foundation for research funding in product innovation (2020). • Selected by Angel List for A-List (Top 1% Talent on WellFound formerly Angel List). ## Work Experience ### Vice President Design @ BlackRock Jan 2022 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States Led workshops, conducted research and partnered with stakeholders across a wide variety of initiatives for BlackRock and iShares, building out new experiences in record time, & receiving multiple internal awards. Filed successful patent applications, defining key use cases with stakeholders for BlackRock's future-facing AI capabilities. Mentored and provide feedback across design org & led direct reports for delivery of new features and functionality for Advisor Center, BlackRock's premiere digital offering for US wealth & financial advisors. Recipient of BlackRock’s internal marketing design innovation award (2022), and the Charles S. Hallac award (2023). - Identified new revenue strategies and business opportunities by leveraging innovation workshops, vision documents, design concepts, prototypes, strategy and process improvements. - Provided key input and insights to evolve and grow design systems across BlackRock. Provide key thought leadership aligned to longer-term goals for BlackRock’s Digital Experience Team through published research to inform design strategy for the future vision of BlackRock/iShares web properties/user experiences. ### Design Partner @ - Jan 2004 – Present | San Francisco Design partner and acting head of design for VC Firms, Founders, Fortune companies and various startups, aligning business strategies with established and emerging design management paradigms that produce profitable results. Provide growth-focused leadership and strategic ideation with expertise spanning business, product, marketing, and brand—leading to final design execution of consumer-facing products and services. • Deliver highly effective design strategies for digital products, which measurably drive customer adoption/satisfaction, leading to business growth and industry awards. Apply a multifaceted holistic design approach that leads teams towards new opportunities and fresh approaches resulting in more desirable products, better services, and stronger customer loyalties. • Full-stack designer, equally adept in all aspects and phases of product (UX/UI) ideation and design, marketing, advertising, and communication design strategies and tactics. • Act as tireless advocate for users as well as business goals, and understand how to balance and achieve sometimes conflicting needs. ### Principal UX Design Manager @ Macy's Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area Principal UX Design Manager overseeing all pre-holiday redesign efforts and deliverables, across mobile and web teams. ### Head of Product Design @ Socrates AI Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 Socrates AI is an artificial intelligence engine that works with existing enterprise systems & documentation, providing answers to employee’s questions and taking action, mirroring the consumer experience. Head of Design Referred by my former CEO and brought in at the VC/board level to lead the design efforts for a similar enterprise AI product as previous company, Espressive. • Singlehandedly designed and launched a vastly improved value proposition and website for Socates.AI, working with the Sales team to distill highly technical concepts into user-friendly and effective marketing copy. • Lead design improvements of the core Socrates.AI user experience, which were well received by customers and end users. • Evolved the consumer-facing brand personality of Socrates.AI to be highly differentiated in the market of AI products, across multiple touch points. ### Head Of Design @ Espressive Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Palo Alto Head of Design for a series A venture backed AI software company. Espressive is enterprise software made “consumer-friendly” in its approach, driving adoption with its best-in-class user experience and AI that “gets things done” for both employees and their agents across the organization. http://www.espressive.com Head of Design • Lead the design of the core Espressive MVP as employee #6, producing a groundbreaking new product experience that is highly desirable and differentiated in the marketplace, for both customers and end users. Defined the consumer-facing brand personality of Espressive which speaks to real human needs and desires, not abstract technical concepts. • Created a truly novel system for third party co-branding which maintains the unique brand voice of the product, while giving meaningful ways for corporations to express themselves. • Referred by the CEO to the VC/board of a similar company to continue similar work in the enterprise/AI space. ### UX / Creative Design Director @ One Step Beyond Consulting Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 OSB was a 25-person computer software consultancy with 25M in annual revenue providing services in areas that include product strategy and specification, user experience and visual design, software development and quality assurance. Our clients include Cricket Communications, makers of the Muve digital music service. Cricket Mobile's music service was at the time one of the largest subscription-based music services in the US with 2.5m+ paying subs. OSB led the design and development of a major redesign, Muve 4.0. • Led & conducted customer interviews, user research, competitive analysis, and brainstorming sessions with senior executives, product managers, and UX designers to distill user needs into beautiful and friendly user experiences that provided a significant uptick in brand awareness, active users, and customer loyalty. • Spearheaded prototyping and testing of new features, brand directions, and radically redefined the UX and visual design of the product experience of Muve Music, a 2+ million user Music App on Cricket Mobile/AT&T. ### Senior Design Director @ Beyond Oblivion (Boinc Music) Jan 2011 – Jan 2012 | San Francisco Bay Area Boinc was a unique digital music service service that that supported smartphones, computers, and other hardware platforms for streaming music, owned by NewsCorp (Rupert Murdoch). • Led the ideation of visual and UX design of the Boinc music product and branding on multiple platforms: iOS, desktop, and Android. • Mentored and managed al team of designers and developers from product vision, ideation, iteration, to successful launch. • Created brand initiatives, marketing campaigns, and partnered to define the consumer-facing brand voice of Boinc across multiple touchpoints, resulting in a highly differentiated and desirable product in the marketplace. • Partnered with senior executive management on multiple design initiatives, including cobranding, technology and hardware partnerships with HTC and others, resulting in market adoption. ### Creative Director @ Caring.com Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 Caring.com is a leading resource for family caregivers seeking information and support in caring for their aging parents, spouses and other loved ones. • Responsible for definition and execution of design strategy for the Caring.com website/application. resulting in exponential YOY revenue growth, supported by advertisers targeting a highly valued market segment. • Led a major redesign of the homepage that increased user retention by making the product more personal and relevant, encouraging repeat visits. • Continually designed and implemented significant new feature sets in an Agile/Scrum environment in order to meet a myriad of complex and often competing user experience and business goals, resulting in increased ad sales and monthly unique visitors. ### Principal Designer, Consumer | Customer Innovation Group @ Yahoo! Jan 2007 – Jan 2008 Yahoo!, Inc. is a multinational, digital media company focused on informing, connecting, and entertaining users through research, communications, and digital content products. • Promoted to principal UX/visual design leader in the Consumer / Customer Innovation Group, an innovation team at Yahoo! working on design concepts, prototypes, strategy and process to connect advertisers with audiences in brave new ways. • Chartered with creating new partnerships and developing opportunities across business units company-wide. Launched new products and designed new features for the Yahoo! network including Bubble My Video, “Threading” advertising model, and several major advertising initiatives. • Responsible for several company-wide initiatives targeting specific underserved market segments, such as Chief Household Officers and Tech Boomers. • Led innovation summits, created vision documents, design concepts, prototypes, strategy and process to connect advertisers with audiences in brave new ways, leading to new cross-bu partnerships and effective revenue strategies. ### Senior Art Director @ Yahoo! Jan 2006 – Jan 2007 • Recruited to conceptualize, develop, presented, and actualized ad campaigns, micro-sites, landing pages, emails, and GUI architecture for flagship Yahoo business units, which led to increased engagement and sales. ### Educator/Contractor @ Adobe Systems Jan 2006 – Jan 2007 Developed and taught a Flash training course for employees of Adobe ### Senior Designer @ eBay Jan 2005 – Jan 2006 Creative consultant with eBay for over a year. Worked on branding initiatives, Flash microsites, advertising campaigns, emails/newsletters, and web UI. ### Flash Designer @ Flash Brigade Jan 2005 – Jan 2006 Contractor with Flash Brigade, working on various Flash projects for ad agencies, including major campaign launch for Visa. ### Creative Director @ Meevee Jan 2004 – Jan 2005 | Burlingame, Ca. Meevee is a personalized web-based TV and movie listings service based on the user’s favorite actors or genres. Acquired by LiveUniverse. • Spearheaded conceptual development and execution of user-customizable television listings service with a team of product developers, engineers, and I/A specialists, resulting in successful launch of MVP and exponential increase in user base. • Composed product requirements, created rapid prototypes for user testing, along with competitive assessments and positioning models. • Defined look and feel, brand guidelines, and style guides. Created the tagline “Find Something To Watch,” which was trademarked and used. ### Online Creative Director and Manager @ TechTV Jan 2000 – Jan 2004 | San Francisco TechTV.com was a network about technology and the Internet which reached 43M households in 70 countries, and claimed 2 million unique visitors monthly to its website. • Managed creative for a global, 24-hour cable, satellite and web site network and as a founding member helped to grow from launch to become a highly regarded and popular media property. • Recruited, developed and managed a team of technical and visual designers and provided mentoring across multiple projects. • Acted as lead UI designer and provided functional requirements specification to engineering for a myriad of projects, site launches, and redesigns, supporting an ever increasing audience share. • A strategic stakeholder in the Branding and Marketing groups governing the TechTV brand positioning cross-medium. • Reviewed incoming proposals, project schedules, and budgets, resulting in increasingly efficient and innovative approaches to generating revenues and generating web traffic. • Implemented global strategies for style guides, intranet, applications, games, and automated image scripting. • Collaborated with ad sales/internal promotions departments to create successful and unique web campaigns for clients such as Microsoft, Dice, Circuit City, and others. • Wrote creative briefs, design specifications, and style guides. • Provided strategic direction, vision, and scope on web-based projects, guiding definition of sites. • Supported the work of over 50 writers with unique and original daily editorial content and multimedia. ### Senior Interactive Designer @ ZDTV Jan 1998 – Jan 2000 | San Francisco Ziff Davis has evolved into a digital media company that engages in the digital publishing of content in gaming, technology, and men’s lifestyle categories. It operates PCMag.com, an online brand that provides laboratory-based product reviews, technology news, buying guides, and more. • Was founding member of a core team of visual artists and engineers creating convergent design solutions for on-air and online content, resulting in continual increase in audience engagement and ad revenue. • Devised web interfaces for television shows and websites, interactive television, and cobranded media properties. Collaborated with Apple engineers and design staff in Cupertino to launch ZDTV’s QuickTime TV channel for broadband. Produced thousands of original story illustrations and interactive pieces for daily web and on-air content, as well as contests and promotions. • Contributed to daily network content as a show guest and specialist, providing live on-air demonstrations, help, and how-to segments. • I met Chuck D, Brian Eno and Kevin Spacey. ## Education ### MFA in Design California College of the Arts ### BA in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts, Audio, Video, Media, Art & Design San Francisco State University ### Post BA Studies in Visual Arts University of California, Berkeley ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/seanross --- Source: https://flows.cv/seanross JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/seanross/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13