The Nerdery / Hy-Vee / 3 Years
Program Lead Designer
I established a deep connection with the CMO and SVP of Digital Strategy, earning their trust to lead omnichannel innovation for Hy-Vee.
In 2021, Hy-Vee was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 24th largest privately owned company in the United States with 93,000+ employees, 285 retail stores, and $12B in revenue.
I was honored to lead this effort and set the roadmap for grocery delivery and operational tools to drive Hy-Vee into the digital world.
Key Initatives
User Research
Lead a team of 3 UX researchers and visited 10+ stores across the midwest identifying customer segments, key use cases and loyalty values.
Uncovered blind spots in customer engagement models, driving curbside pickup improvements and a new hyper-focused customer journey framework.
Content Strategy
A key marketing initiative was finding the digital brand voice for Hy-Vee and how to embody the company’s flagship mantra since 1917: “happy smiles in every aisle” across all digital experiences. There was a unique push and pull between corporate and stores, that we honed in on and strategically leveraged— instead of dictated. This empowered general managers and corporate to express the brand with a cohesive, efficient content management process.
Design Execution
I lead a team of 10 UX designers, 4 project managers and 1 lead account manager, helping breakdown the company’s largest project into manageable, meaningful, timeline-driven projects spanning everything from a full restaurant rebrand with mobile ordering, to Pharmacy and prescription management, to online grocery shopping and custom recipe integrations.
I reported directly to the CMO and SVP of Marketing at Hy-Vee.
Experience Strategy
Alongside two of my smartest experience strategists, Casey and Jake — we spent 3 months doing hands-on research, synthesizing outcomes and ideating in a war room to ultimately land on 5 key initiatives to move Hy-Vee into the next generation of digital strategy.
This was one of the most motivating and rewarding projects of my career.
Grocery Delivery and Pickup
Hy-Vee was one of the first brick and mortars to offer grocery delivery and pickup. By 2016, they were feeling the heat of competitors streamlining the consumer experience and asked us for help in taking it to the next level.
At the time, having a grocery list ordered and ready in less than hour was a moonshot for senior leadership. We helped them see that this was a near term reality and together we crafted a program roadmap to get them there.
