Chris Royer Email & Phone Number

United States

Empowering startups to close fundraising by developing a pitch deck narrative that holistically represents the business

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Empowered a 16-person team to create their best work and grow skills in a fast-paced, remote-first environment. Partnered with executives to shape the strategy of email and productivity applications for Yahoo and AOL brands. Co-directed the Design Associate Program that hired and mentored four cohorts of early-career professionals. Key accomplishments:Built an inclusive and engaged team that reflects the diversity of the customer base, by prioritizing team member’s well-being and individual mentorship, resulting in 7 promotions, a low attrition rate and team-engagement ratings that moved from well-below company average to exceeding it.Increased ad revenue 40% through format innovations — surpassing $1 billion.Co-created an affiliate commerce business line, that aligned brand and customer intents, to achieve an annualized $40 million run rate.Managed internship recruitment for two years, creating a future talent pipeline that saw half of these classes convert to full-time roles.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Started as a player-coach with 2 designers for messaging products. Transitioned to the native and search advertising platform, and eventually oversaw 7 designers shaping tools for all ad campaign management.Key accomplishments:Refreshed the web-based interface for Yahoo Messenger, and spearheaded design of a forward-thinking, multi-platform group chat application, Yahoo Together.Directed creation of ad campaign dashboard that gave account managers at-a-glance understanding of campaign health, which drove customer affinity in satisfaction surveys.Partnered with UX researchers to plan and conduct 30+ interviews with customers and subject-matter experts, that shaped integration of all demand-side advertising platforms into a single unified tool.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Spearheaded UX on Yahoo Mail’s legacy website, and collaborated with other designers to rebuild on a new tech architecture. Mentored early-career designers within the team. Co-authored a commerce-centric product strategy.Key accomplishments:Applied systems-thinking approach to redesign and to validate in-product messaging components, and created a framework to manage when users see each informational message. Also advocated to secure significant organizational investments in data infrastructure.Built upon growth-focused work to create instructional messaging that retained nearly all existing Yahoo Mail users during migration onto a new web platform.Analyzed data to show prevalence of shopping-related messages, and created an “unsubscribe” flow that reduced unwanted emails while retaining desirable ones, with about 25% of users interacting daily.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Led key projects for Yahoo Mail, by coordinating the work of multiple designers. Used prototypes to identify solutions and influence stakeholders. Co-founded a “growth” team that targeted acquisition and retention gaps.Key accomplishments:Filled a design leadership vacuum and led a time-constrained redesign of web-based email, by translating executive expectations into a technically feasible design strategy.Established growth best practices that influenced the broader product group’s processes, to ensure A/B tests and launches track longer-term retention, in addition to short-term metrics.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Conceived email and messaging productivity enhancements and collaborated with engineers, PMs, and UX researchers to implement within a time-pressed environment.Key accomplishments:Redesigned the Yahoo Mail app for Android that was released alongside other platform updates (in late 2012) and acquired 5 million new installs within 3 months.Partnered with a senior PM to analyze the competitive landscape for email apps, with recommendations shaping a majority of the following year’s product roadmap.Designed interactions and visual specs for threaded conversations (emails joined by a common subject line), which brought Yahoo Mail to parity with key competitors.

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Coordinated daily presentation of news reports in a deadline-driven environment. Collaborated with cross-discipline partners to tell stories through headlines, articles, photos and graphics.

Chicago, Il, Us

Partnered with another intern and staff consultants to plan administration of “grand prize” challenges for the U.S. Department of Education. Researched mechanics and effectiveness of such competitions, through analysis of source material and expert interviews. Presented findings to facilitate stakeholder feedback.

Munster, Indiana, Us

Customized eight daily print editions, by accounting for the distinct interests and needs of each regional audience. Summarized wire service content in quickly skimmable reports for time-pressed readers.

Directed presentation of the newspaper’s cover stories and special sections. Created data visualizations and maps to enhance visual storytelling. Led a reorganization of news and entertainment sections to align audience engagement and editorial strategy.

Masters, Design

Bachelor Of Journalism, Journalism