Norway

UX Research

UX Design

UI/ Visual Design

Design Operations

Service Design

Customer Experience (CX)

Data Product Management

Damjan Obal

Head of Design

Product strategy

Prototyping

Qualitative research

Communication

Collaboration

Critical-thinking

Empathy

Stakeholder management

Leadership

Human computer interaction

Figma

Miro

As research lead for the Nordics, I was tasked to help grow the local team and presence. Joined an ambitious project that took one of the biggest financial institutions in the Nordics on the journey to rethink and redesign their customer journeys. 

Worked with some of the brightest minds in the industry and had the privilege to lead an interdisciplinary team of 7 designers, service designers, and researchers. My role on the project was mainly to be the interface between the client and our teams and a mentor to our designers and researchers. 

Leaving my Cognizant team behind was a tough decision, but the desire to return to my "product roots" and the domain I love (future of work and collaboration) won at the end.

Our team was supporting the Cisco Webex Devices BU that designed and launched some of the best collaboration devices on the market. 

My role was to:

- Be the voice of the user in a room full of product and business stakeholders
- Help the BU prioritize roadmap items and understand the market needs 
- Guide, equip, empower and mentor the team of researchers and UX designers
- Create, disseminate and evangelise research findings throughout the organisation
- Gather insights from key customers and stakeholders
- Plan & conduct qualitative user interviews
- Plan & conduct long-term research studies
- Plan & conduct usability testing

After leaving GVC, I joined friends at Xeneta in Norway to return to my product and design research roots. 

In a small product team, I mainly focused on building bridges between Sales, Customer success and the product team. 

After helping the team scale and operationalise design, I moved back to a more senior position, but stayed in Norway.

Teaching and mentoring MA students. Topics: Interaction Design, UX Research, UX Management.

Edit: GVC renamed to Entain in 2021

Was the group head of UX & Design (20+ people) in one of the biggest gaming groups, when GVC acquired bwin.party.

My role was to:

- Manage, grow, consolidate design teams across 5 locations (Vienna, Gibraltar, London, Kiev, Hyderabad)
- Prepare UX & Design roadmaps and participate in the PDLC
- Introduce and enforce a global UX strategy
- Bring UX to the strategy table by reporting directly into CPO & COO
- Manage key stakeholders (in-house & b2b) and provide product support to all the GVC brands (bwin, PartyCasino, PartyPoker, SportingBet...) and b2b partners (MGM, DanskeSpil, Borgata, SuperBahis...)
- Deliver ROI on UX investment (grew the team by more than 2x)
- Optimize key conversion funnels (e.g. Registration to 1st Deposit by 30-40%)
- Oversee new, bespoke product development (e.g. Horses & Dogs racebook)
- Oversee and lead the kick-off of the new responsive/adaptive framework together with key IT stakeholders
- Facilitate workshops and negotiations with key product owners and business stakeholders
- Work with external agencies (research, marketing)

EDIT: bwin was acquired by GVC and I took over the role Group Head of UX. 

Joined the bwin.party group as the Studios (product delivery unit) UX team lead. 

- Oversaw the design & synergies talks with the GVC group who later acquired bwin.party
- Pushed for consolidation of designers in one centralized ux & design unit
- Proposed and enforced new workflows
- Introduced design sprints
- Optimized the "design-validate-asset handover" process

Edgar is a VC backed startup founded by myself and Marusa back in 2013. It is a set of visual storytelling tools and a curated marketplace of brand storytellers. Our goal is to help crafters, makers and micro-brands tell their brand and product stories. 

My role as the CEO was:

- Build and manage a team of developers, designers and business developers
- Lead the company through 2 successful financing rounds lead by international VCs
- Set the vision and on-board new employees (7 full-time, 6 part-time)
- Guide to company to become profitable 7 months after launch
- Encourage the company to pivot 2 times before launching the final product
- Present Edgar on stage in front of the media, investors and potential clients

My role as the Product/UX lead was:

- Create and overview the product development roadmap
- UX strategy
- UX research with journey maps and key business
- UX design with wireframes and design guidelines

24alife (previously @Life) is a holistic corporate wellbeing platform with web, mobile and desktop applications. The product is accompanied with the expert service, stretching from doctors, nutritionists and psychologists who collaborate on the platform. 

I joined the team as the Head of User Experience & Design in the product discovery phase. 

We worked on:

- Native iPad applications for doctors
- Web application for corporate wellbeing
- Native iOS and Android applications for: Health tracking, Activity tracking, Food tracking

My role was to:

- Build the design team from scratch and onboard new designers, front-end developers and researchers (Mayo Clinic and universities from Slovenia and Austria)
- Be the bridge between major stakeholders involved (business, research, experts)
- UX strategy
- Design guidelines and product documentation
- UX research & design lead
- User Journeys, Personas, Experience maps
- Create clickable wireframes
- Design hi-fi mockups for most important flows
- Own the implementation process

Challenge Future (C:F) is a global youth think-do-tank. An NGO empowering youth to tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow. C:F was one of the first collaborative platforms on the internet, one that mobilised more than 40.000 active participants to collaborate with other youth from around the world. 

I joined the initial team as one of the founding members and it is still one of the things I'm mostly proud of in my career. 

Some of the results:

- More than 30.000 active, engaged youth users from 212 countries
- 87 local C:F hubs
- 3 Global Summits
- 400.000+ volunteering hours to solve global challenges
- 3000+ Innovative ideas sprung on the online platform

My role was:

- Product discovery, ideation
- Product development & management
- Branding (from the name to the identity)
- Build and lead a team of creative thinkers
- Design guidelines
- Creative direction
- UX, IA and web design for the C:F platform
- Help with Community Management

blok_blok is a brainchild of mine, a mix where UX meets research and both meet art. In more than 8 years we worked with clients such as: Ogilvy, Publicis, CNN, AP, Mayo Clinic, United Arab Emirates, Elan, Gorenje...

As founder and the UX lead I was responsible for UX strategy, research and design. Integrating both users and key stakeholders in the process of designing meaningful experiences and delivering innovation through design. I also facilitated strategy meetings and hence mostly operated as an UX consultant helping companies define their products and UX opportunities.

Joined as a graphic designer and copywriter, but soon took the role of the senior interactive designer. After a year I took the role of the creative lead, guiding a team of print and interactive designers and developers. We created some of the most acclaimed projects such as the Hitmania.tv, which was present in the whole region (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia...). We were the pioneers in mobile communication campaigns. I helped the company deliver unique and user-friendly products, whereas I was responsible mainly for the holistic User Experience.

Deputy editor and later editor-in-chief of the GameZone magazine for young and young at heart. Writing articles, themes, doing interviews and finally helping my designers craft the look & feel of the publications.

Damjan Obal🇳🇴

About Damjan Obal

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