Jon Ochenas

Live Oak Bank serves small businesses in all 50 states with specialized lending, particularly for niche industries and is the #1 SBA 7(a) lender by dollar volume. The bank also offers a range of deposit products through its branchless, digital platform.

Responsible for building design capabilities, establishing cross-functional collaboration processes, and delivering customer-facing digital products that drive business growth. Managed team development, stakeholder alignment, and execution across multiple business units and interfaced directly with SLT on CX strategy and enterprise-wide initiatives.

Significant Accomplishments

• Coordinated a 6-person team and drove cross-functional collaboration to converge three workstreams under a 4-month deadline. Balanced team workloads, negotiated priorities with marketing and other partners, and leveraged experience-based intuition to prevent scalability issues. Delivered a digital loan application that generated $125M in revenue (25% above target) and drove a 15% net income increase for the bank.
• Secured budget to rebuild liveoakbank.com despite internal resistance and limited mid-cycle funding. Presented opportunity cost data on designer/engineering misalignment to convince CDO and partners. Delivered 5-month rebuild achieving 90 SEO score, surpassing larger competitors. Empowered marketing with self-service capabilities while transferring site maintenance to operations and engineering teams.
• Orchestrated customer experience strategy across 3-year enterprise architecture transformation while assets grew from $8.2B to $12.9B and loan originations increased from $3.9B to $5.2B. Designed modular experience framework enabling seamless platform migrations without customer disruption. Maintained flat support costs through continuous feedback loops and usability testing during major system swaps.
• Resolved year-long stalemate between Design and Marketing teams and unblocked the creation of a modern design system through cross-functional processes. Delivered world class design system based on industry best practices and latest Figma capabilities. Established trust with Marketing and enabled 10x efficiency gains in design work.
• Launched quarterly Integrated workshop playbook. Piloted structured problem-solving framework with to break down assumptions and build solutions from foundational truths. Enhanced personal toolkit beyond creative approaches, enabling stronger interface with business strategy and leadershipCustomer Insights reports for the Senior Leadership Team to combat siloed knowledge and anecdotal decision-making. Synthesized marketing reports, analytics, usability testing, and CSAT/NPS data into executive-friendly presentations. Built trust and strategic communication with SLT, earning confidence to break 6-month CSAT program gridlock after C-level executive failed to deliver.
• Addressed systemic, ad-hoc decision-making that led to difficult platform reversals and inefficient manual processes. Researched best-in-class frameworks to develop comprehensive First Principles.
• Transformed 4-person ex-marketing team into capable product design organization. Repaired strained marketing relationships by establishing role clarity while implementing scalable Triple Diamond framework processes. Made strategic hires and developed Job Role Architecture adopted as organizational standard along with UX Maturity framework for career progression. Delivered four promotions and achieved top engagement survey scores in manager support.
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Fortune 50 home improvement retailer operating over 1,700 stores across North America, serving millions of customers through omnichannel experiences spanning e-commerce, mobile, and physical retail locations.

Advanced through multiple roles to become the first Director of User Experience during Lowe's eCommerce reorganization and digital transformation. Responsible for leading 60+ designers, researchers, and content strategists across six customer journey verticals supporting a billion-dollar e-commerce platform.

Significant Accomplishments

• Adapted GV Sprint methodology to big-box retail complexity and facilitated four strategic engagements in Paint, Flooring, Appliances, and Lawn & Garden. Identified traffic flow inefficiencies and associate workload peaks, generating solutions including optimized circulation patterns. Delivered environmental improvements that are visible across the chain, creating millions of dollars in savings and efficiencies across thousands of locations and millions of customers.
• Led 60+ designers, researchers, and content strategists across six customer journey verticals during a pandemic and digital transformation. Campaigned for director role creation by demonstrating the need for CX leadership parity with product partners. Delivered critical pandemic capabilities including Buy Online Pickup in Store and Pro customer CRM.

Known as "the BMW of forklifts," Crown specializes in electric lift trucks, automated guided vehicles, fleet management systems, and integrated warehouse technologies that optimize safety, productivity, and energy efficiency for industrial operations across diverse industries.

Established and led Digital Design at this billion-dollar material handling equipment company. Responsible for creating comprehensive UI/UX systems across Crown's vehicle portfolio, collaborating with engineering teams on hardware integration, and designing operator interfaces that balance performance with safety requirements.

Significant Accomplishments

Delivered comprehensive UI overhaul for Crown Equipment's industrial vehicle portfolio spanning six vehicle categories across three screen sizes. Replaced antiquated two-line display with full-color, touch-enabled screens and a dynamic widget system that responds to operator preferences and context. Coordinated digital development aspects from hardware selection to custom font commissioning. Enabled real-time operator coaching through sensor integration while unlocking new value-added service revenue channels through fleet management capabilities.