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Biography

An Australian product all rounder

Growing up outside in the Australian sun, while I liked sport and also had a strong passion for music and art. I did a music degree at university but ended up with a career as a designer.

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Taken with my iPhone with a clip on macro lens

I grew up in Adelaide and studied for a degree in music performance at the Adelaide University Elder Conservatorium of Music where I spent much of my time within the confines of the electronic music studio designing and composing for public audiences. In this time I also worked part time for FADS (Franklin Advertising and Design Studio) where I cut my teeth on brochures and display advertising. I have been working with tools such as Illustrator since version 1.1, Photoshop Beta and QuarkXpress 2.0.

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Screen Shot 2021-07-21 at 4.06.12 pm.png

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The first version of Illustrator that I was able to get my hands on

On a move to Sydney a started my own studio "Tonant Design Imperium" where I serviced contracts with Unilever Australia, Simplot and Campbell foods. The Tonant offices were within the complex of one of the Unilever subsidiaries – Florafoods. As such my team and I worked very closely with their marketeers developing packaging systems and promotional campaigns over a number of years. In this time my appreciation for brand wealth and the importance communicating brand value clearly and consistently was fine tuned.

Many of the designs I implemented for the food service market both here in Australia and New Zealand are strong brands today – Frytol, SPD, Chefade, Vegitol, Spreadrite and Master Craftsman to name but a few. On top of local brand development my company also managed the packaging artwork for international brands such as Flora, Robert Timms, Rosella, Liptonice, Continental.

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Probably my most successful packaging design

Into my fourth year running Tonant Design Imperium I started to move toward electronic products as I saw the packing companies start to employ there own designers and computer operators. Initially this took the form of CD ROM development using Macromedia Director (then under the brand MacroMind) and desktop video products using Adobe AfterEffects and Premier.

With the emergence of DV and the purchase of a Firewire card and RAID drive my team and I were producing promotional video products as a sideline to our bread and butter packaging business. At this time the processing power available to me was by current standards tiny and rendering times were calculated in weeks. Pre-planning was essential for any chance of delivering to schedule – storyboards and animatics were an important part of our standard processes.

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Yours truly pitching desktop video services on the small screen

Excited about the internet boom and looking for a change after seven years working with essentially the same people and brands, I dissolved Tonant and contracted to the Bigpond Web Hosting division within Telstra as a user interface designer. At Telstra still Australia’s no.1 telecommunications provider I designed and implemented the presentation logic for their web hosting self service system. From here I jumped to Praxa in Melbourne where I designed and implemented interfaces for applications based on the Windows Media Streaming kit.

My next role was with edocs – a Boston based software company which sold EBPP (electronic bill presentment and payment) solutions. My first implementation was in Australia where I helped design the interface and implement OLBS (online billing system) at Telstra.

The majority of my work was focused on facilitating requirements gathering for customer self service (CSS) implementations. Some of my recent client engagements have been with Vodafone (UK), Avaya (USA), Sempra (USA), Cingular (USA), AT&T (USA), Portugal Telecom (Portugal) and Sprint PCS (USA). Finally my role for edocs changed to that of a troubleshooter to fix problem implementations both from a development and customer relationship perspective, my work at Avaya and Sempra was in this capacity.

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Screen Shot 2021-07-21 at 4.28.09 pm.png

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No longer in existence but I remember this logo appearing in films at the time

On the purchase of edocs by Siebel systems I was moved into the Siebel architecture group and given the task at looking at ways to increase the efficiency of the development process from a UI perspective. In this short time with Siebel (before they were in turn purchased by Oracle) I wrote a number of white papers discussing the integration of RIA (rich internet application) technologies, UI methodologies and reviewed the OnDemand product line against its competitors.

After the purchase of Siebel by Oracle I moved across into the AppUX group. After ten year working primarily on Supply Chain Management applications I was let go when the AppUX group contracted to include only US and India based team members. It was a year before I got my next role. I spent a lot of that time making videos for Bizztube.

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One of my TV commercials for Bizztube

While at edocs I met Mike Massaro in London where we were both stationed for a few months to implement ebilling at British Telecom. Mike reached out to me to see if I was interested in helping improve the payment experience at the company where he was CEO. I was soon on a jet to Boston working for Flywire. At Flywire I was introduced to contemporary product management culture and agile product development processes things I discovered were given only lip service at Oracle.

The company let go 25% of “Flymates” in May 2020 as part of Covid 19 downsizing. Sadly I was part of this, however on a more positive note the company went public a year later making the options I had exercised rather valuable. It’s true what they say, working for Flywire is not a job it’s an adventure. I traveled extensively during my time with the company, learnt and did so much and am left with many great memories. My wardrobe to this day still comprises many high quality swag items from this tenure :)

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Mike Massaro delivering a post IPO press conference

Experience

Table 1

Table 1

Role

Organization

Status

Based

Start

End

Senior UX/BA Analyst

Fivecast

Contract

Adelaide Australia

March 2021

May 2021

Product Designer

The Distillery

Contract

Adelaide Australia

November 2020

March 2021

Product Analyst

Project Lela

Volunteer

Adelaide Australia

November 2020

May 2021

Product Analyst

Flywire

Employee

Adelaide Australia

November 2016

May 2020

Product Designer

Self Employed

Adelaide Australia

October 2015

November 2016

Senior Interaction Designer

Oracle

Employee

Adelaide Australia

April 2006

October 2015

Engineer

Siebel Systems

Employee

Melbourne Australia

September 2005

April 2006

Consultant

Hydrix

Owner

Melbourne Australia

April 2004

September 2005

Consultant/Sales Engineer

edocs

Employee

Melbourne Australia

February 2000

April 2004

User Interface Designer

Praxa

Contract

Melbourne Australia

November 1999

February 2000

User Interface Designer

Telstra

Contract

Sydney Australia

April 1999

November 1999

Manager

Tonant Design Imperium

Owner

Sydney Australia

March 1995

February 1999

There are no rows in this table

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Senior UX/BA Analyst - Fivecast (contract), Adelaide 2021

Product Designer - The Distillery (contract), Adelaide 2020

Product Analyst - Project Lela (volunteer), Adelaide 2020

Product Analyst - Flywire (full time), Adelaide 2016 – 2020

Product Designer (self employed), Adelaide 2015 – 2016

Interaction Designer - Oracle (full time), Melbourne 2006 – 2015

Engineer - Siebel (full time), Melbourne 2005 – 2006

Consultant - Hydrix (owner), Melbourne 2004 – 2005

Consultant/Sales Engineer - Edocs (full time), Melbourne 2000 – 2004

User Interface Designer - Praxa (contract), Melbourne 1999 – 2000

User Interface Designer - Telstra (contract), Sydney 1999 – 1999

Manager - Tonant Design Imperium (owner), Sydney 1995 – 1999

Skills

Market and solution fit experimentation and research

Problem space discovery

Solution visualization and prototyping

Design system development and implementation

Stakeholder management

What I'm reading/listening to

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Recent videos I’ve created

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Photography I’m proud of

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Jan 11 2017 - Granite Island

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Sep 16 2014 - Gold Coast

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May 20 2013 - Gold Coast

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Jan 23 2017 - Barossa Valley

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