Akshay Verma Email and Phone Number

I lead and develop a team of user researchers (Associate to Staff) and research leads/managers, while elevating our methodological rigor, strategic and tactical impact, executive presence and influence, and research excellence.

UX research lead & people manager for Duolingo's Monetization area and the Duolingo English Test, with a focus on international markets. My team and I work on: - Duolingo Max, our AI-powered subscription tier (end-to-end, iterative product development) - Subscription Packaging (research-inspired experimentation for packaging our premium tiers) - Growth markets & internationalization (global field research to unlock member growth)- Duolingo English Test (foundational, framework-level international research)

Established and led the UX research practice at the Series E conversation intelligence startup. • Conducted strategic, foundational research to shape 0-1 product strategy for new product areas. • Shaped, socialized, and led the research roadmap (in partnership with market research & pricing research) for the highest-impact & most strategic company initiatives. • Introduced UXR processes from scratch, from research intake to prioritization to socialization. • Educated cross-functional partners (product, design, marketing, data science, research science, etc) on the role and value of user research. • Established rolling research programs, including weekly rapid evaluative research, to foster a user-centered culture at every stage of the development process. • Evaluated and implemented tools and vendors to scale research support.• And everything else in between.

• Led high-impact & foundational mixed-methods research (1-1 interviews, diary studies, large-scale global surveys, formative concept tests, experimentation & AB testing, etc) to inspire product, design, and algorithmic innovation around Spotify’s personalized listening ecosystem. • Proactively identified, prioritized, and led the research roadmap (user research & data science) for a 200+ person product area. Research areas include the user experience of ML and recommender systems, multi-market international needs and experiences of music personalization, and the artist value of Spotify's algorithmic programming. • Actively involved in hiring, mentoring, and coaching; co-led D&I strategy for company-wide user research and data science hiring.

• Venture Segments & International - Mixed methods foundational research to inform LinkedIn’s consumer strategy for venture segments and international markets. • LinkedIn Talent Solutions - Embedded multi-sided marketplace research and new product experimentation for LinkedIn’s suite of hiring-related B2B products, including LinkedIn Talent Insights, Recruiter, and Career Pages. Influenced product and design roadmaps for various shipped products and features.• Search, Infra UX, and Trust & Safety - Embedded formative and foundational research to inform product development for Search, LinkedIn News, Help Center.—• Methods: 1-on-1 interviews, customer field visits, formative concept tests, card sorts, street intercepts, journey and opportunity mapping, co-creation, diary studies, contextual inquiry, design ideation workshops, surveys, unmoderated usability, and behavioral data tracking.• Managed end-to-end research process, from project scoping and set-up, participant recruiting, and data collection to rigorous synthesis and analysis, stakeholder involvement, and creative reporting of actionable insights. • Collaborated daily with cross-functional partners (design, product management, business operations, engineering, data science, research operations, and many others) to evangelize and infuse user research into all stages of the product development process.

• Led user interviews to investigate reactions to various new features for 2 new mobile apps and a web redesign; communicated key findings via specific design recommendations to engineers & PMs• Evaluated the UX on multiple apps and web interfaces to identify pain points; filed 30+ bugs and made recommendations for improved usability; to address primary trouble areas, identified important questions and key areas of observation for future user research

In a multidisciplinary team of designers, engineers, technologists, and entrepreneurs, designed a prototype to reimagine the border control experience at airports using VR/AR + Blockchain technology; presented our designs, including mobile UX mockups and a low-fidelity HoloLens VR/AR prototype, to fellow participants and IDEO CoLab leaders

FABRICA is the Benetton Group's design research centre. As Design Research Lead on a 9-person project team, I led end-to-end research efforts for a design project in collaboration with the R&D innovation lab at Barilla, one of the world’s leading pasta retailers.

• Researched millennial alcohol consumption behaviors of Italian and American youth by conducting online surveys, interviews, ethnography, and diary studies• With this research, proposed new product development and branding overhaul for Distelleria Nardini, Italy’s oldest distillery • Used design thinking principles to reframe challenge, identify problem spaces, uncover insights and propose solutions through ideation, prototyping, and testing

CYFI is one of the Global Top 50 non-profit organizations, as ranked by The Global Journal in 2016. Since 2012, its innovative products and policies have reached more than 36 million youth worldwide.• Oversaw stakeholder engagement with regional bodies and national authorities to maintain partnerships and to explore potential initiatives in developing strategies for child financial inclusion• Researched and wrote policy briefing papers on how economic empowerment activities led by CYFI could fill gaps in national implementation plans related to drafting child and youth financial education, ensuring access to customized financial products, and building livelihood platforms• Together with McKinsey consultants, drafted, complied, and designed an extensive 40+ page “toolkit” to consult most central banks around the globe on ways to develop sustainable strategies for child financial inclusion, education, employment, and entrepreneurship