Catherine Licavoli

Product Designer + UX/CX Strategy

Detroit

I consider myself a storyteller first and foremost.

My college background is in Business Administration and Marketing Management where I quickly became fascinatedwith the intersections of business strategy and marketing and the importance of thorough research and validation of what problems customers were REALLY in need of a better solution for and why.

My tech background started in the early 2000's as an account manager for a hosting and internet service provider, where I saw first hand what good websites were helping companies achieve as a key marketing tool. After the .com bubble burst I finished my degree and went on to work for two tech startups taking on marketing functions, SEO/SEM and content strategy work when these terms and schools of thoughts were just becoming a thing.

I then went on to work as Product and Sales Facilitator for FIAT helping train over 200 dealerships and the mid-Atlantic business center on product value propositions and new sales processes and tools that could help them provide the best possible shopping experience for customers.

From there I wanted to have a larger role in defining the product and offerings and spent the next 3 years with FordDirect working as a Solutions Manager for the Innovation Lab where were researched and validated prototypes for web based lead, marketing, inventory management, website and shopping tools. It was during this role that I gravitated heavily towards the importance of UX strategy, User Centered design, the Design Sprint, Lean UX and Startup principles of the top thought leaders in the space making the best online experiences and products.

I worked with Jake Knapp of Google and AJ&Smart as mentors and to get certified in Design Sprint and Opportunity Sprint certification and look forward to putting may background and skill sets to use for VLMY&R and Ford UX and CX projects.