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JACK SHAPIRO – US Citizen Lexington, MA • 617-759-3234 • jackshap@gmail.com • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackshapiro/ • www.jackshap.com

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EXECUTIVE PROFILE — HEAD OF PRODUCT DESIGN / USER EXPERIENCE

UX executive with 20+ years of architecting and leading global design organizations for complex B2B SaaS, data, and AI platforms. Led UX strategy for a ~$1.2B+ portfolio of high‑stakes, regulated, and mission‑critical workflows, shifting an engineering‑centric company toward design‑driven, user‑validated product delivery. Specializing in AI/ML UX for human‑in‑the‑loop and complex decision‑support interfaces. Operates comfortably at SVP/C‑suite level, embedding UX and AI‑driven DesignOps into SAFe and SDLC gates across multiple product lines and geographies. Pioneered integration of LLM capabilities and Virtual Persona agents into enterprise workflows—compressing validation cycles 10–15x and materially reducing late‑stage UX and QA churn.

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LEADERSHIP VALUE

  • Recruited and trained 19 team members across five regions to establish a follow-the-sun operating model → Increased design throughput by ~40% and supported revenue growth from $180M to $1.2B.

  • Enterprise AI Acceleration Initiative → integrated LLM personas and Copilot automation into validation workflows → Cut UI QA workload by ~70% and shortened validation cycles from weeks to days.

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CORE COMPETENCIES

  • Global UX Org Leadership: Builds and scales high-performing distributed UX teams, establishes global operating models, and drives follow-the-sun collaboration that removes cross-team bottlenecks and increases execution velocity. Known for creating cohesive team cultures across regions, aligning practices across time zones, and enabling real-time design and engineering responsiveness.

  • Complex B2B Workflow Orchestration: Redesigned complex industrial workflows → Implemented adaptive UX and reduced cognitive load → Cut task time by 25–35% and improved error detection by 20%.

  • AI-Driven DesignOps (Virtual Persona Agents): Introduced LLM-based “Virtual Persona” agents, compressing concept-validation cycles from 2–3 weeks to 2–3 days (10–15x speedup). Reduced late-stage usability churn and improved decision confidence for PM and Engineering.

  • Design Systems at Scale: Implemented an enterprise-wide design system with Angular/React support, achieving ~90% product adoption, reducing design inconsistencies by ~50%, and cutting rework by ~35%.

  • Product Delivery Integration: Embedded UX into SAFe/SDLC processes across 200+ products, reducing late-stage design churn by ~30% and speeding cross-functional alignment during major M&A product harmonization efforts by ~25%.

  • Executive Stakeholder Management:  Aligned Product, Engineering, and GTM leadership around a unified UX strategy  → Facilitated prioritization workshops and joint planning cadences  → Improved decision velocity by 20% and sped up portfolio-level alignment cycles.

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

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ASPEN TECHNOLOGY – Bedford, MA Global software leader for the energy and industrial sectors

Senior Director, User Experience - Product · 2015–2025

Recruited, to pivot AspenTech from a technology-first culture to a user-centric product organization. Accountable for UX strategy and execution across a product portfolio generating ~$1.2B in annual revenue.

  • Grew and led a 19+ person UX team across five geographies (US, Scotland, India, Montreal, Mexico). Scaled capabilities in parallel with company growth from US$180M → US$1.2B in annual revenue.

  • International Design Hub Expansion:  Operationalized new design centers in Mexico, Glasgow, and Bangalore to facilitate 24/7 follow-the-sun collaboration → Increased iteration velocity by 30% and enhanced global R&D alignment.

  • Reduced UX Rework & Standardized Delivery Across 200+ Products: Integrated UX into SAFe/SDLC workflows, cutting late-stage design rework by more than 50% and establishing a consistent discovery → design → validation rhythm across product lines.

  • Automated Design-to-Code Pipeline: Architected a proprietary Figma plugin suite using Claude Code and GitHub Copilot to automate accessibility and governance checks → Reduced UI QA effort by ~40% and eliminated design-engineering inconsistencies across dozens of squads.

  • UX Project Zenith, Cultural Transformation:  Developed education tracks, playbooks, and a Champions network to shift the company from engineering-centric to user-centric → Drove enterprise-wide UX consistency across 1,300+ developers and PMs.

  • Enterprise Design System, Project Element: Co-architected a framework-agnostic design system (Angular + React) that became the single source of truth across Product, QA, and Engineering. Eliminated duplicate implementations and cut front-end build time by >50% through unified pattern governance.

  • Product & Workflow Innovation: Led cross-functional teams to redesign industrial workflows using persona-based configuration and backend service orchestration. Members from my team were awarded three Presidential Awards for innovation that improved adoption and accelerated customer time-to-value.

  • AI Prototyping & New Offerings: Led a skunkworks team that built a prototype combining industrial sensor tags with AI sorting algorithms; the concept won “Best in Technology Class” and was successfully productized as a new offering.

  • Customer Alignment & Field Enablement: Partnered with Customer Success and field engineering to translate complex industrial workflows into scalable UX patterns. Improved enterprise onboarding speed and reduced friction for high-value accounts.

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Director, User Experience, R&D · 2007–2015.  Senior UX leader Tasked with building foundational UX capabilities during AspenTech’s early transformation from on-prem legacy software into a modern, cloud-oriented, user-centered portfolio.

  • Standardized UX across 200+ product portfolio:  Implemented unified UI models → Increased design consistency by 40% and reduced workflow fragmentation.

  • Portfolio-Wide Brand Harmonization: Designed and enforced a unified visual interaction model across the entire product suite → Reduced UI drift by ~50% and aligned R&D and Marketing touchpoints.

  • Flagship Desktop Modernization: Directed the end-to-end UI overhaul of legacy applications while implementing rigorous resource management → Delivered the transformation $2M under budget and improved usability metrics by 30%.

  • International Expansion: Established the Mexico City UX office, hiring and developing the founding team. Reduced regional UX turnaround times by ~35% and created the blueprint that later supported global UX expansion (Glasgow, Bangalore).

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JACK A. SHAPIRO CONSULTANCY – Boston, MA Founder & Principal Consultant · 2000–2007.  Built a design consultancy delivering digital solutions for enterprise and healthcare clients for 7 successful years.

  • Fortune 500 Digital Solutions: Directed UX, branding, and development for 20+ websites for major clients including Pegasus, Dell/EMC, Fidelity, and Biogen Idec → Resulted in long-term client partnerships and multiple successful enterprise rollouts. 

  • Biogen Idec Intranet Management:  Relocated to Switzerland and France to lead the design and operations of corporate intranet ecosystems → Delivered cohesive digital experiences for European headquarters and ensured consistent internal communications.

  • Cross-Platform Experience Design: Led end-to-end UX and branding initiatives spanning web, 3D visualization, and instructional media → Delivered cohesive digital experiences that secured multi-year retention with healthcare and enterprise accounts.

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EARLY CAREER & LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION

  • Multimillion-Dollar Program Management:  Piloted large-scale engineering events and multimedia initiatives for EMC/Dell and Cramer Productions → Managed 60+ staff to deliver complex digital programs on budget.

  • Advanced Technical Visualization: Produced 3D visualization and technical communication for security and industrial sectors.  Translated complex engineering concepts into clear visual assets.

  • South African Defense Force (SADF) — Army Intelligence Operations: Served in Operations Intelligence focusing on strategic data analysis → Completed service with an Honorable Discharge.

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EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) – BFA in Fine Art, Printmaking & Photography Honors: Senior Invitational

Brown University – Research & Coursework in Physics (Focus on White Light Holography)

Thayer Leadership at West Point, West Point, NY – Executive Education: Senior Leadership Training

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PATENTS

  • 4 pending patents in multimodal and audio technologies

  • US 9,354,776: Applied client-side service integrations in distributed web systems (2016)

  • US D750,123 S / US D790,572: Display screen with graphical user interface (2016/2017)​

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TECHNOLOGY & TOOLS (SELECT)

  • LLMs & AI: Claude, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Custom Virtual Persona frameworks, Stable Diffusion, Custom ComfyUI Agents, Custom XML Skills for Claude Code.

  • Design & Prototyping: Figma (incl. plugin development), FigJam, Enterprise design systems & tokens, Adobe Suite, 3D Studio Max and Rhino.

  • Front-End & Scripting: HTML/CSS/JS, Three.js amongst others.

  • Ops & Delivery: SAFe, Agile/Scrum, Jira, Confluence, CI/CD collaboration.

  • Figma Automation: Built NPM tools for Figma Design and Figma Make.  Adept at building Figma Plugins.   

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LANGUAGES English (native) • Hebrew • Afrikaans • Luxembourgish • Zulu

© 2025 by Jack Shapiro. 

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