Rick Vanderknyff Email & Phone Number

Kirkland, Wa, Us

Greater Seattle Area

As senior assigning editor at NerdWallet, I:- Develop and execute content strategy for key company initiatives- Lead content partnership with marketers, analysts and product managers - Manage a team of world-class editors and writers - Assign and edit content across a range of personal finance topics- Hold responsibility for key success metrics - Collaborate with teams across the company to produce quality content that makes financial information transparent to users- Protect and advance the NerdWallet brand and uphold high editorial standardsNerdWallet is on a mission to provide clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. We provide consumers with expert, personalized, and actionable guidance across a range of personal finance topics. Whether you’re shopping for a new credit card or mortgage, hoping to refinance a student loan, interested in learning more about investing, or just want to stay on top of your money, we do the homework for you, simplifying complex ideas so you have the information and tools you need to make the right decision for you.

Redmond, Wa

As knowledge engineer for the 1,400-strong Content Publishing discipline at Microsoft, my responsibilities and achievements included:- Building a regular calendar of training and events for content publishers, including twice-monthly online meet-ups, based on topics identified in skill gap assessments and achieving increased reach and effectiveness - Revising the discipline communications strategy, including a redesigned monthly newsletter with sharply higher click-through and relevance and the successful launch of a new social community on Yammer - Working with senior discipline leaders to shape direction for content publishing at Microsoft, resulting in a completely revised set of core strategies- Co-organizing Content Publishing Day 2014, attended by more than 400 content publishers at Microsoft and achieving the highest satisfaction scores of any major event managed by Engineering Excellence in FY14- Helping to drive content and usability improvements for the web tools that underpinned Microsoft's first Global Hackathon in July 2014, which involved more than 10,000 employeesStarted in Engineering Excellence as Senior Online PM. Primary role: Product planning for the EE Learning & Development Platform Solutions Team, which built web experiences serving the training and support needs of engineers at Microsoft. Duties included: Gather feature requirements and help groom product backlog as part of an agile/sprint process, conduct user research, coordinate metrics requirements and instrumentation.

Helped oversee creation and launch of MSN Local Edition, which quickly grew to more than 1 billion annual page views and exceeded key goals for search transfers to Bing. Oversaw launch of MSN Postbox (curated photo-sharing site with initial 10-city focus, later expanding internationally). Oversaw editorial, monetization and feature planning for MSN local online sites including (over time) Weather, City Guides, Yellow Pages, White Pages and others. As product owner, worked closely with engineering teams on feature requirements as part of an agile/sprint process.Also, during my tenure managed MSN relationships with partners such as Slate, The Root, Zvents, Citysearch, WhitePages.com and others.

Launched and managed Blink, staff web portal which serves 20,000+ UCSD employees, and which was a pilot for staff portals in the University of California. Managed a team of 10 writers, editors and developers.

Key member of launch team for San Diego Sidewalk, one of 10 original Sidewalk sites created by Microsoft and a pioneer in the online city guide market. Later led launch of Sidewalk sites in Los Angeles and Orange County.

During my tenure, I was a full-time copy editor, a full-time reporter for the Calendar (arts and entertainment) section, a full-time researcher and held other roles.

Ma, Anthropology

Ba, Communications