Svetlin Denkov

Svetlin Denkov

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Product Design & UX Leadership | B2B/B2C Enterprise Design | Strategy & Ops | Driving $ millions of value for Google, McKesson, Group O.
Chicago, Illinois, United States

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Jobs verified_user 0% verified
  • Onbe
    Director of User Experience
    Onbe
    Dec 2025 - Current (11 months)
  • Randstad Digital
    User Experience Director
    Randstad Digital
    Sep 2023 - Jun 2025 (1 year 10 months)
  • Randstad Digital
    User Experience Team Lead
    Randstad Digital
    Sep 2023 - Jun 2025 (1 year 10 months)
    Randstad Digital helps clients accelerate their digital enablement and deliver the best possible outcomes.

    Combined client-side Director leadership and hands-on design involvement to evolve a portfolio of complex digital products within McKesson's PSAS business unit.
    • Led the vision, metrics, scoping, and execution for a portfolio of complex finance B2C/B2B products at McKesson, driving +50% adoption and +30% YOY revenue growth.
    • Advised 30+ Senior and Executive Leaders across 5 workstreams, resulting in +50% buy-in for conducting UCD.
    • Collaborated with 10 PMs, 6 Engineering Leads, 2 QA Managers, and Support teams on framing and iterating designs for 10s of features, delivered +30% faster across 6 SAFe Agile PI
  • Nerdery
    User Experience Manager & Principal
    Nerdery
    Apr 2021 - Jun 2023 (2 years 3 months)
    Nerdery is a Midwest consultancy driving product development and digital transformation engagements for Fortune 100 clients. I developed 4 direct reports, led internal Sales initiatives, and as a principal I led 0-to-1 product design projects with clients such as Google Retail, bringing $ millions of value. At Google Retail, I led the Design effort while reporting to Chi Vu.
    • Saved $5 million for Google Retail by leading a cross-functional design team on the roadmap planning, data-driven vision, research, and prototyping of a CMS managing a fleet of 250K+ devices.
    • Streamlined design delivery by 50% for Google Retail by creating a Material 2 based design system.
    • Won $3.5 million of new business for Nerdery by leading pitc
  • Nerdery
    User Experience Manager
    Nerdery
    Apr 2021 - Jun 2023 (2 years 3 months)
    Nerdery is a full-service consultancy focusing on designing and building digital products for clients in different industries.

    Successfully performed as a people manager, Principal Designer, and production contributor, while winning new business and partnering with existing clients (such as Google Retail) to realize their visions.
    • Led a cross-functional design team on the product roadmap planning, and executing data-driven vision, research, wireframing, and prototyping for a CMS (controlling device handling, analytics, and connectivity) of a fleet of 250K+ devices at Google Retail, saving $5 million in labor costs.
    • Established the foundations of Google Retail’s design system based on Material 2, streamlining deliver
  • Nerdery
    Senior User Experience Designer & Project Lead
    Nerdery
    Oct 2015 - Apr 2021 (5 years 7 months)
    Nerdery is a Midwest consultancy driving product development and digital transformation engagements for Fortune 100 clients. I led design teams on complex, $ multi-million B2B and B2C product engagements for clients in the healthcare, technology, and industry domains.
    • Won 3 new accounts for Group O worth $2.5 million and expedited delivery by 2 months by re-envisioning their Ovations B2C and B2B omni-channel platform and introducing Agile.
    • Drove +20% traffic monthly and 100s of new sign-ins for Vantage Group by leading a team of 3 on the content, requirements, IA and redesign of 5 sites into a global marketing responsive site.
    • Eliminated 2 days in ticket resolution and increased Wiki utilization by +30% via the redesign
  • GN Resound
    Senior User Experience Designer & Interaction Lead
    GN Resound
    Aug 2012 - Sep 2015 (3 years 2 months)
    GN ReSound is the American arm of the global GN Group. It is one of the biggest hearing aid manufacturers in the world, first pioneering wireless communication to mobile devices.

    Applied my IxD skillset in building prototypes for different channels and users, thus proving experiences which targeted release-to-market products from the R&D group.
    • Prototyped a POC Apple watch app to explore adjusting hearing aids wirelessly. This merged in the ReSound iOS app, empowering 60K+ users to perform self-adjustments. 

    • Envisioned and designed a TeleAudiology iPad experience for performing initial fit of hearing aids. This was rolled in the GN Fitting Software used by over 20K audiologists.

    • Researched, scoped and desig
  • Axure UX RP
    Axure Educator & Expert
    Axure UX RP
    Jul 2012 - Dec 2018 (6 years 6 months)
  • Axure UX RP
    Axure Educator & Contributor
    Axure UX RP
    Jul 2012 - Dec 2018 (6 years 6 months)
    • Presented at Axure World 2013.
    • Regularly presented on mobile and tablet prototyping at the Axure Meetup Chicago.
    • Collaborated world-wide with fellow designers and developers on Axure's forums for solving User Experience prototyping challenges.
    • Conducted workshops for educating local-to-Chicago designers on prototyping as part of Chicago Camps and individually for big Chicago design agencies.
  • IxDA
    Chicago Local Leader
    IxDA
    Mar 2011 - Sep 2015 (4 years 7 months)
    IxDA Chicago is the Chicago chapter of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). It's a community of interaction design practitioners, educators, and enthusiasts who come together to share knowledge, network, and learn about the latest trends and best practices in the field.
    • Connected with and build relationships with knowledgeable and charismatic speakers on all topics related to Design. Led the organization of over 10 events.
    • Collaborated with organizations (non-profit, enterprise, and agencies) on the budget, logistics and hosting of regularly scheduled monthly events. Presentations were delivered to 100s of IxDA members every year.
    • Worked in a team of local leads to craft the vision and strategy of growing the Chic
  • Sears
    User Experience Designer
    Sears
    Sep 2010 - Jul 2012 (1 year 11 months)
    Sears is an American chain of department stores and an online retailer.
    • Worked on various digital properties in the company's portfolio including: myGofer mobile experiences, associate-facing Sears tablet designs, in-store Kmart kiosk systems, and multiple products in the Sears Marketplace and GameOn sites.
    • Project responsibilities ranged from performing user research, independently and collaboratively sketching concepts, generating and iterating sitemaps, flows, and wireframes of different fidelity, completing usability testing and QA/UATs alongside Development, and assisting Managers and UX Directors in driving forward the Mobile Strategy via user stories, mind maps, and product journeys.
    • Helped frame Local, Mobile an
  • Cathedral Counseling Center
    User Experience Intern
    Cathedral Counseling Center
    Dec 2009 - Sep 2010 (10 months)
    Cathedral Counseling Center is a non-profit mental health organization that provides professional, affordable therapy services to individuals, couples, and groups.
    • Led the rebranding of the non-for-profit organization's online presence.
    • Interviewed staff to identify the their needs and built business requirements with Directors of Development and Operations.
    • Drove the development lifecycle by performing content inventory along with site authors, designed the experience of a 30-page architecture, and then created the solution via using a custom CMS and HTML/CSS code.
    • Conducted training sessions with staff and third-party business partners to assist with the long-term maintenance of the site.
    • Partnering with
  • Cathedral Counseling Center
    User Experience Designer
    Cathedral Counseling Center
    Dec 2009 - Sep 2010 (10 months)
  • Motorola
    User Interfce Design Engineer
    Motorola
    Jul 2007 - Jan 2009 (1 year 7 months)
    The CxD (Consumer Experience Design) organization focused on enhancing the customer experience across various mobile touchpoints and code platforms.
    • Worked with global internal teams and third-party consultants on producing technical requirements for various offerings in the company's phone portfolio.
    • Alongside with Business Analysts prioritized features based on user research and analytical metrics, which drove the UX process behind flows and wireframes for projects of in software platforms such as P2K, Linux Java, and others.
    • Collaborated with Product and Project Managers to streamline communication across geographically separated teams.
    • Created design guidelines and usability test plans for various projects.
  • Netrix LLC
    User Interface Design Engineer & Design Writer (contract at Motorola)
    Netrix LLC
    Oct 2006 - Jul 2007 (10 months)
    Netrix Global is a global IT consulting and managed services provider.
    • Engaged with UX Designers and QA teams to create copy localized for different business markets of the Linux Java and Sprint platforms.
    • In charge of maintaining variable strings or copy, which was constantly updated based on design documents.
    • Corrected 1000s of copy prompt errors with the help of Development, which then evolved in transitioning the static data storage to a dynamic database.
    • After building considerable domain expertise by reviewing 100s of flows and wireframes, I was promoted to a Designer tasked with converting business requirements to design specs for Linux Java and P2K platforms for phones including the Moto RAZR, Pebble, and
Education verified_user 0% verified
  • P
    Foundations Course, Product Strategy
    Pragmatic Institute
    Jan 2023 - Dec 2023 (1 year)
    Course overveiw:
    ● Understand the market and the problems it faces
    ● Use market knowledge to build and sell products people want to buy
    ● Master the Pragmatic Framework and the activities needed to bring a successful product to market
    ● Learn to listen to the market, prioritize projects and drive result
  • F
    Certificate in Figma, User Experience and UI Design
    Figma Academy
    Jan 2023 - Dec 2023 (1 year)
    Advance topics in Figma.
  • IDEO U
    Certificate Program, Foundations in Creative Leadership
    IDEO U
    Jan 2021 - Dec 2021 (1 year)
  • eyeo
    Conference, (AI, Tactile Interfaces, VR, Visualization)
    eyeo
    Jan 2019 - Dec 2019 (1 year)
    The Eyeo Festival brings together a rich intersection of people doing fascinating things with technology. Artists, data designers, creative coders, AI explorers, storytellers, researchers, technology & platform developers all cross paths and share inspiration at Eyeo.
  • O
    Training Workshop, (User Experience)
    Object Oriented UX
    Jan 2018 - Dec 2018 (1 year)
    Full-day training workshop by Sophia Voychehovski teaching the foundations of component-based experience design.
  • G
    Training Workshop, (User Experience)
    Growth of Organizational UX Design
    Jan 2018 - Dec 2018 (1 year)
    Half-day training workshop and presentations by Jared Spool teaching the foundations of streamlining organizational design for UX teams.
  • T
    Training Workshop, (Conversation Facilitation)
    ToP Facilitation Training
    Jan 2018 - Dec 2018 (1 year)
    2-day workshop by Hue Life aimed at learning simple techniques to help make a crucial decision or prepare a new initiative, guiding a diverse group of people to a consensus on a key issue, and implementing a new behavior change program or launch a new strategy or project.
  • Loyola University Chicago
    Bachelor of Science (B.S, Computer Science
    Loyola University Chicago
    • Graduated Magna Cum Laude
    • Graduated with Departmental Honors in Computer Science
    • Awarded Presidential Scholarship for academic achievements
  • DePaul University
    Master of Science (M.S, Human Computer Interaction
    DePaul University
    ● Graduated Summa Cum Laude
    ● Academic Research:

    Craig S. Miller, Svetlin Denkov, and Richard C. Omanson. 2011. Categorization costs for hierarchical keyboard commands. In Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2765-2768. DOI=10.1145/1978942.1979351 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1978942.1979351

    Master Thesis:

    Research, Re-Design and Testing of the IxDA Chicago Mobile Site Using the UCD Process
Projects (professional or personal) verified_user 0% verified
    Publications verified_user 0% verified
    • Smashing Magazine
      How To Prototype IoT Experiences: Building The Hardware (Part 1)
      Smashing Magazine
      Jan 2017
    • Smashing Magazine
      How To Prototype IoT Experiences: Configuring The Software (Part 2)
      Smashing Magazine
      Jan 2017
    • Smashing Magazine
      Factors In Selecting a Mobile Prototyping Tool
      Smashing Magazine
      Jan 2016
    • Packt Publishing
      [Practitioner Corner Contribution] in Prototyping Essentials with Axure
      Packt Publishing
      Jan 2014
    • Smashing Magazine
      Building Clickthrough Prototypes To Support Participatory Design
      Smashing Magazine
      Jan 2014
    • Smashing Magazine
      Creating Clickthrough Prototypes with Blueprint
      Smashing Magazine
      Jan 2014
    • A
      Categorization Costs for Hierarchical Keyboard Commands
      ACM CHI
      Jan 2011
    This is a community-created genome.