Resume

CAREER SUMMARY
Design Leader with an entrepreneurial spirit and strong track record of setting up and managing businesses and teams with a human centered design perspective; helping businesses grow and establish their brand. 

SKILLS & EXPERTISE
Leadership, Operations Management, Design Management: Design research framework, UX Design Management in Agile setup.

Design: User Centred Design Process, Design for Social Impact, Adobe Creative Suite, MS Office Suite

User Research and Usability: Focus Group Discussions, Ethnography, Contextual Inquiry, Thinking Aloud Protocol,Card Sorting, Heuristic Evaluation, Affinity Diagramming, Wallet Mapping, Fly on the wall observation, Experience Prototyping, Body Storming, Personas

EDUCATION

  • Master’s of Science in Human Computer Interaction Design,
    Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, GPA: 3.93/4.00
    May 2009.
  • Bachelor‘s of Design in Communication Design,
    Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India, GPA: 8.65/10.00
    May 2005, Department Rank 1.


RESEARCH INTERESTS
Business Innovation, Strategic Design Thinking, Product Design, Sustainable Development Goals, Design for NBU (Next Billion Users)

WORK EXPERIENCE

Paytm – Associate Vice President – Design (March 2020- present)

  • UX Design for Financial Inclusion
  • Design for Next Billion Users
  • Building Design Culture

1mg – Assistant Vice President – Design (September 2019 – February 2020) Role: Assistant Vice President 

  • Heading the User Experience across the different products and services platforms. 
  • Building design team : Talent hiring & training to build cross functional teams
  • Working closely with Product Leaders to drive Customer Experience. 
  • Leading the Design Operations to building Design Culture

Fondésan – Research & Design Consultancy (January 2019- August 2019)   

Role: Founder & Principal Designer 

Fondésan is a Mission-Driven Global Consulting firm supporting organisations and leaders from around the world in creating large-scale, lasting social change. Through customised consulting services, innovative thought leadership, and support for learning communities, we helped foundations, businesses, nonprofits, and governments around the world create impactful solutions. 

Areas of Interest: Future Tech, Healthcare, Education, Financial Inclusion, Sustainable Development Goals 

Selected Clients: Colosseum Ventures (USA), Whistle Drive, Thinkplace (Australia), Gates Foundation, Clinton Health Access Initiatives (CHAI), Space Age Labs (Singapore)

Design Thinking & User Experience Design Workshops – (August 2009 – August 2019)

A decade long experience of conducting Design Thinking workshops for multinational  companies, startups, government bodies, university and schools. 

Selected Clients: HP Enterprise, NTT Data, McAfee, Thoughtworks, Amdocs, Unisys, ADP, CA Technologies, Trelleborg, Manpower, Luxottica, Arvind Brands, Lumiplan, JK Tyres, L&T Infotech, IBS Technologies, SupportBee

Happy Horizons Trust, March 2017- August 2019 (www.happyhorizons.org)

Role: CEO & Co-Founder, Director of Design, Planning, Strategy & Fundraising. 

Using Systems Design Thinking to design a non- profit that leverages the potential of the youth to improve the quality of education in Rural India. The organisation runs a highly impactful Youth Leadership Development Fellowship Program for girls and uses activity-based learning and participatory methods to improve the quality of education by focusing on overall development of the child. It’s Digital Literacy and Learning Through Videos programs are designed to bring technology as a learning aid amongst first general school goers.

Key partners : USAID, Read Alliance, Indiana University, Wipro Foundation, Teach for India, Luminous Power, WEE Foundation, QOS Technologies, Colosseum Foundation, Dept of Science & Technology, Pratham Books 

L’école de Design Nantes Atlantique – France, February 2012 – September 2017

Role: Director, India Studio & Head of Operations
Led the Transcultural Design Masters program focused on Social Innovations & Design Thinking; to produce Award winning designers. The program was attended by European nationals for a 2 year residency in India. 

Happy Horizons Consulting (P) Ltd, August 2010 – May 2015

Role: Principal Designer & Founder

Managing functions of the company across Operations, Marketing and Finance,
Conducting Design Workshops across colleges and organizations and Design Evangelism through talks.
Helped numerous start-ups and organizations as User Experience and Design Consultant, enabling them to create brand value by improving the Usability of websites, User Experience of their applications and doing their logos.

Selected Clientele: Eka, Healthyhum, Swasthya Lehar, Tech for Impact, Divi, The Color Caravan, Whizkard, Bonton, AKM Communications, Cinedarbaar, OCradle, Bihar Entrepreneurs Association, Career Kafe, IIM Kozhikode, Toehold, NetBramha Studios, Health Scribes, The Color Caravan, AKM Communications, Grey Water, Knowledge Varsity, Bonton.

Kuliza Technologies (P) Ltd, May 2011-January 2012.

Role: Design Manager and Strategist

Involved in the establishing and the running of design team within company. Worked on the company’s first product offerings on Social Commerce. Managing Design Team, Part of Quality Committee, Client Interfacing for Design, Contributing author to Quarterly magazine, Handling recruitements
Working in the domains of Social Interaction Design, Cloud Computing and Mobile Applications

Motorola Corporation, Chicago, USA, June 2008- August 2008.

Role: User Interface Design Intern

Research and Design of Media Player, integrating carrier’s services for Windows Mobile 7.0 focusing on touch screen interactions for productivity phones.
Analysis of existing user flows and creating new interactions for home screen on Windows Mobile 6.1 based touch screen phone.

Infosys Limited, Bangalore, India – August 2005 – August 2007 

Role: User Interface Designer, worked across projects in desktop and web applications. Conducting User Research, performing Usability Tests, Requirement Gathering, Information Architecture, Creating Wireframes, Generating Interaction Diagrams, Visual Designs and Design Documentation.

Major Clients: Microsoft, Motorola, Hitachi, DHL, SetLabs, Argos  

DESIGN TEACHING & MENTORING

The Design Village, Noida – May 2014-Present
Role : Director
Responsibilities: Involved in setting up and managing of The Design Village, an interdisciplinary, industry centric institute offering undergraduate and post graduate courses in Design.

Institute of Product Leadership – India’s first B-school for technology managers – April 2013 -August 2015
Role : Visiting Faculty
Responsibilities : Teach Design, Usability, User Experience and Design Thinking to enrolled candidates, who are (or are on the path to becoming) Product Managers / Leaders

Indiana University Bloomington, USA, August 2007-May 2009.
Role: Associate Instructor, Project Manager, Design Mentor
1) Course i310, Multimedia Arts and Technology, Fall 2007.
Tasks: Teaching Flash in labs, Leading Discussion sections, Teaching basics of graphic design.
2) Course i495, Senior Capstone, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009.
Tasks: Teaching basics of design softwares like Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash.
Design Mentorship to over 30 students and Project Management for 15 projects in Information Systems.

PUBLICATIONS

  • “Design in the school classrooms : Applying Design tools to improve quality of education”, Anand Kshitiz, Haag Jean  Published at the ICoRD 2015 Conference, Bangalore.
  • “Quivering Web of Living Thought: Mapping the Conceptual Networks of Swinburne’s Songs of the Springtides” John A. Walsh, Pin Sym Pin Sym Foong, Kshitiz Anand and Vignesh Ramesh, Indiana University.
    Presented at the Digital Resources for the Humanities and Arts 2008, UK.
  • “Tangible Music: Increasing the pleasures of human-human interactions using Phidgets”.
    Anand, Kshitiz; Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, S Subramaniam; University of Saskatchewan.
    Presented at the first IHCI conference held at Bangalore, December 2004.
  • “A framework to teaching Design for Social Impact”, Anand, Kshitiz; Haag Jean Baptiste, Lecole de design Presented at the DDEI Conference, Pune (India), March 2013

ACCOLADES AND ACTIVITIES

  • Awarded the IIT Guwahati Alumni excellence award 2014 for my work with Lécole de design and Happy Horizons Trust.
  • Workshop on Design for Social Impact, with students of Lécole de design (India Studio) Talk at Design Day #7, “The Story of Design” , Bangalore, April 2013
  • Talk at The Goa Project, “Does your Design tell a story?”, Goa, March 2013
  • Invited speaker at Anime Convention, New Delhi 2010, 2011, 2012
  • Invited speaker at TEDxMANIT Bhopal, February 2011.
  • Invited for a talk on Design for Social Impact, Social Entrepreneurship, and emerging trends in UI, at Mindtree Ltd, Bangalore, November 2010.
  • I was invited at the Anime Cine Experience, Siri Fort Auditorium, Delhi, conducted by Cine Darbaar and Japanese Embassy, in August 2010 to conduct a workshop on Basic Animation as a part of their film festival celebrating Anime culture in India.
  • Invited for a talk on Design for Social Impact at Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore, May, 2010
  • Invited to conduct workshop on Design for Social Impact at India HCI conference, IIT Bombay, March 2010.
  • Visiting Faculty – Photography and Design at WLC India College, Bangalore, 2009-2010.
  • Contributing Author at Indian Auteur, an online film criticism journal, 2008-Present.
  • Invited speaker at TEDx conference, held at BITS Pilani Goa Campus, February 2010.
  • Human Computer Interaction and Design for Social Impact workshop at IIT Guwahati, September 2009.
  • Presented talk on Research Strategies for Design for Social Impact at Ignite Bloomington, April 2009.
  • Invited to conduct workshops at NIT Trichy, NIT Surathkal, IIT Guwahati, BITS Pilani, MS University Baroda, NIT Surat.
  • Remote Volunteer for Empowerment International, Nicaragua, helping out as Graphic Designer.
  • Merit Scholarship for Graduate Studies at Indiana University for the academic years 2007-2009.
  • Awarded the President of India medal to best outgoing student in terms of merit for batch 2005 at IIT Guwahati.
  • Creative head of design team for Alcheringa 2004, the IIT Guwahati cultural festival.
  • Conducted a photo video workshop, “Lights, Camera, Action” at Techniche, IIT Guwahati, 2004.
  • Member of Students’ Gymkhana Council, IIT Guwahati, 2002-2004.
  • Awarded the IIT Guwahati Institute merit scholarship for excellence in performance in the year 2002-2003.

References are available on request.

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