Ryan Shafer

Impact & Leadership

• Experience Transformation: Reduced test-result turnaround from days to seconds and automated risk insights—replacing costly, manual workflows with instant, actionable output.
• Client Impact: Drove experience design for a mission-critical workflow that directly contributed to one of its largest client wins.
• Revenue Expansion: Designed revenue-generating opportunities that accelerated adoption and expanded account value.
• Unified Design System: Unified the product and marketing experiences under a shared design system — improving the client journey.
• AI Readiness: Anticipated AI’s strategic role by architecting a UX framework for future RAG-based integrations—enabling differentiated and secure insight delivery.
• Executive Influence: Secured senior leadership and Board alignment through executive storytelling and interactive prototypes.
• Team Growth: Expanded Oritain’s UX team through strategic hiring and mentorship while balancing culture against scale.

Impact & Leadership

• Conversion Growth: Tripled homepage-to-signup conversion (~2.5% → ~9%) by diagnosing and resolving critical funnel bottlenecks.
• Cross-Platform Design System: Improved delivery speed and consistency across Web, TV, and Mobile by establishing a shared design language, design tokens, and governance.
• UX Function Formation: Built Showmax’s first in-house UX function—shifting the organization from agency dependency to an evidence-based, data-informed design practice.
• Cross-Functional Delivery: Aligned UX strategy with shared growth goals—driving collaboration across Product, Engineering, and Marketing to accelerate high-impact releases.
• Talent Development: Mentored and elevated emerging designers; one later became Showmax’s Lead UX, sustaining the discipline long after my tenure.

Impact & Leadership

• Audience Growth: +565% mobile visits and 3× engagement by modernizing MTV’s fragmented legacy platforms into a unified, mobile-first experience.
• Industry Innovation: Pioneered one of the first responsive, ad-supported media experiences—recognized with a Webby Award and later adopted as a new standard for Viacom.
• Strategic Funding: Secured multimillion-dollar investment in our group by co-presenting to Viacom’s COO—elevating design as a strategic driver of digital transformation.
• Cross-Platform Experience Strategy: Unified brand experience across broadcast, digital, and mobile—strengthening trust and continuity across every touchpoint.
• Product Delivery Leadership: Reimagined collaboration between Design, Product, and Engineering—embedding UX early in product planning to accelerate delivery and raise product performance at scale.
• User Insight Integration: Embedded audience research and prototype testing into development cycles—driving faster validation and more confident decision-making across teams.
• Design Organization Growth: Scaled Viacom’s first UX organization—managing multimillion-dollar budgets, mentoring a 15+ person team, and building sustainable design practices that ensured consistency across brands.

Impact & Achievements

• Laid the operational and cultural groundwork that enabled the Music Group’s future UX organization.
• Digital Brand Growth: Defined and scaled the digital presence of LOGOTV and MTV, shaping early brand expression and establishing foundational design systems.
• Design System Foundations: Introduced reusable UI components and production standards across MTV and LOGOTV, pioneering scalable design operations before DesignOps was formalized.
• Process Modernization: Streamlined production pipelines and automated asset workflows, cutting prep time from months to days.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Directed a team of 8 designers across MTV & VH1 Digital, improving collaboration with Tech, Product, and Broadcast.
• Cultural Impact: Helped establish MTV’s early social-media voice and integrated user-feedback loops into creative processes.

Notable Projects: MTV Digital Music Store (URGE) · LOGOTV Brand Launch · MTV Awards Interactive Experiences