New Product Exploration
In ambiguous, white-space challenges, I have a unique ability to “cut cubes of clouds”—laying foundations, charting plans, and guiding teams to innovate even when the final outcome is not yet fully defined.
Launching a Net New Financial Planning Platform
Thrivent Financial
Challenge
Develop a self-guided financial planning platform to reach younger, more diverse clients while fostering cross-functional collaboration and aligning with its mission to democratize wealth generation.
My Role:
Lead Service Designer (Co-Lead, Product Strategy):
Directed cross-functional collaboration across Thrivent’s internal teams and acquisition partners.
Led user research, competitive analysis, and strategic alignment efforts.
Oversaw the design and execution of pilots and synthesized findings into actionable recommendations.
Team members:
Product Manager:
Lead Architect:
Marketing Team:
Pilot Partner Technical Design Team
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Unified cross-functional teams, including marketing, design, strategy, and technology, to define KPIs from similar programs targeting younger, diverse clients.
Facilitated collaboration to define success metrics and align strategic priorities for the new platform.
Worked closely with the design and development teams to partner platform to identify product and experience opportunities to as a foundation for our design work.
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Led interviews with prospective users to uncover decision-making behaviors, barriers to financial planning, and preferences for self-guided tools.
Conducted a competitive audit to evaluate external platforms, identifying key features and opportunities for integration with Thrivent’s offerings.
Synthesized insights into v1 and v2 user flow of a net new experience that included actionable strategies for platform positioning and feature prioritization.
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Co-led the design and rollout of a pilot platform for 500 disengaged users, integrating features from a potential acquisition.
Created experience maps and service blueprints to align user journeys with technical and experiential requirements.
Facilitated collaboration between Thrivent’s engineering, design, and marketing teams to ensure a seamless pilot launch.
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Guided iterative improvements based on Pilot 1 feedback, enhancing user engagement features and addressing identified pain points.
Directed the launch of Pilot 2 to 2,500 users through a targeted marketing campaign, exceeding engagement benchmarks and onboarding a new client base.
Fostered cross-functional collaboration between internal teams and acquisition partners, ensuring operational alignment and scalability.
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Presented a comprehensive recommendation report to Thrivent’s Chief Digital Officer and SVP of Digital and Design.
Outlined a roadmap for building a bespoke financial planning platform, incorporating validated user insights, technical integrations, and strategic priorities.
Provided leadership in creating a replicable framework for future product exploration and collaboration.
Project Overview
Project Highlights
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Collaborated on User Flow and Technical Specifications
Worked with engineering teams and development partners to create a user flow that accurately represented both technical specifications and measurement requirements for the experience.
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Developed Dashboard for Analytics and Iteration
Developed a dashboard that aggregates observations from the analytics team, informing our approach for iterating the pilot in the second release. This dashboard guided both near-term and long-term feature development, based on identified engagement patterns.
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Launched Key Features and Established Future Exploration
Delivered an experience with critical features for pilot success, including live advisor connections for first-time users, scenario planning, and seamless integration of client information across two platforms. Established a foundation for exploring engagement patterns to guide future improvements.
