joe o'donnell
joe o'donnell

Design LEADERSHIP + strategic INNOVATION

I'm an outcome-driven product design and research leader who loves simplifying, differentiating and innovating complex b2c and b2b experiences to drive growth.

I work to balance the functional resources and playbooks necessary to deliver evidence-based, user-centric solutions that deliver for customers and the business across all phases of the product lifecycle including 0 to 1, optimization, growth, and innovation.

Most recently, I led Product Design and Research for the fintech trading platform Public.com and previously led design for SoFi’s consumer lending and partnership design teams. I'm currently exploring new FT design leadership roles while taking a moment to help companies get started with AI.

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Design & Research LEADER

I’m a people-first leader who takes the responsibility of management and the privilege of mentoring and helping people grow seriously - fostering positive, inclusive, dynamic team cultures that empower designers and researchers to thrive.

I believe a strong team is an engine for decision making, and our shared rituals provide the structure that drives alignment, efficiency, and results for the business and it’s customers.
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STRATEGIC DESIGNER

I take an insights-based and hands-on approach to helping uncover and align digital experiences with human needs to drive customer and business outcomes.

I’ve spent over 10 years designing consumer products primarily across fintech, e-commerce, and healthtech — leveraging learnings from each experience to help differentiate and simplify often complex, regulated, high-consideration product experiences.
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GROWTH + INNOVATION

I work closely with executives and cross-functional partners to create opportunities that unlock growth, uncover new lines of business, and push company and user goals forward.

Whether sourcing tests to improve incremental growth through experimentation or creating new value altogether, I help teams adopt data-driven decision making and evidence-based human centered design practices to increase the probability of success for any product investment.
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RECENT WORK>

 

Public.com - Fintech / investing platform

Built and led the Product Design and Research team for Public.com - a high-growth social investing platform serving over 3 million retail investors - leveraging design to drive growth and monetization initiatives.

Highlights

  • Grew a dynamic team from 1 to 13 in under two quarters with a focus on end-to-end designers and researchers with diverse backgrounds in designing and shaping consumer experiences

  • Invested heavily in design systems and scalable approaches to problem solving and collaboration, ensuring fast and consistent delivery across mobile and web platforms

  • Shipped 0-1 initiatives that expanded our offerings and addressable market including IRAs, EFTs, NFTs, Crypto, along with enhanced investing data and educational features

  • Introduced experimentation practices that drove key conversion metrics for onboarding, retention, and monetization

 
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sofi inc - Fintech / consumer Lending

Led Product Design for SoFi’s consumer lending and partnership businesses - driving design to support a product ecosystem delivering over $500m+ in annual revenue.

Highlights

  • Expanded the team from 3 to 12 designers to cover 7 different lines of business, collectively responsible for nearly 90% of SoFi’s total revenue

  • Helped shape the rebuild and relaunch of SoFi’s Home Loans product, the initial launch of Private Student Loans, the launch of SoFi’s partner marketplace, Lantern, and the expansion of SoFi’s b2b offering, SoFi at Work

  • Partnered to build a culture of experimentation across our lending teams, driving conversion through optimizations and A/B testing

  • Initiated the end-to-end redesign of legacy loan application experiences - modernizing, simplifying, and creating a new baseline for continued iteration and experimentation

 

Picnichealth - Health-tech / AI

Fractional Design Leader overseeing the design team and growth activities for a health-tech service leveraging health histories and patient-level data to provide insights to customers and partners.

Highlights

  • Led a small in-house team of 3 product designers working on the core experience and an external team of 4 (PM, designer, researcher, marketing designer) on growth activities

  • Refined the team operating model by re-aligning areas of focus and increasing cross-functional collaboration

  • Leveraged qualitative and quantitative insights to guide refocusing of the patient experience and unique value prop

  • Supported growth by leading a series of efforts uncovering opportunities to increase adoption by better aligning messaging and offerings to the needs of patients

 
 

ARCHIVE>

>>> Summaries of other in-house roles that I’ve held, the impact I’ve made, and the lessons I’ve learned

 

Student LOAN HERO - affiliate marketplace

As the first in-house designer at SLH, I partnered to build our product design and innovation practices, along with shipping optimizations and feature work.

 

HOTWIRE (Expedia INC) - E-Commerce / Online travel agency

I was an embedded designer on Hotwire’s Labs team of researchers, helping to lead innovation and service design, uncovering new opportunities to drive conversation and retention.

 

EVERGIVE - Mobile payments + Social Platform

As the Seed-stage startup’s 2nd hire and lead designer, I worked to ship an entire b2b2c mobile-payments ecosystem - and even designed marketing assets, hoodies, and a beer pong table!



 

FUN
FACTS:)

• TAUGHT DESIGN TO 1000+ STUDENTS OVER 4 YEARS
• SERVED IN THE AIR FORCE
• Chili Cookoff Champion