Hello.

My name is Ziya Danishmend. I am a proud father of two fellow humans and reside in New York City.

I am a designer by training and an XD (experience design) strategist by profession. I love what I do. I love the research that it requires and the empathy and creativity that it inspires. I believe in the transformative power of design. Especially human centric design. I have seen it change people.

I started my career as an intern at Microsoft working with the Advanced Technologies team under Nathan Myhrvold. I designed the UI and storytelling pathways for some very early prototypes for interactive television. Since then I’ve worked at startups, advertising agencies, publishing companies (Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal) and Oliver Wyman, a management consultancy as their design lead in their innovation studio. I’ve been a team of one and a team lead.

I work at Dotdash Meredith as the Vice President of Design, AI and Innovation, for the health and finance brands. I lead a design squad re-imagining the future of publishing in the world of Artificial Intelligence. We’ve been working on all sorts of ways to integrate AI into our products and ways of working – treading very carefully on the value that it will bring our readers and our writers.

I have an innovation consultancy, Sift:lab and spend my time creating and facilitating design thinking workshops for established clients and startups to help them learn how to develop new products and services to innovate and reinvent their businesses. I studied anthropology as an undergrad and am intensely interested in field research – especially when it comes to finding better ways to help people. I went to grad school at NYU/Interactive Telecommunications Program(ITP) where I dove deep into thinking how technology affects our lives. Before I did what I do now I spent nearly a decade in the field of journalism working as a photographer and photo editor where I learned the power and impact of storytelling.

I have spent nearly half my life abroad living as an expat and observer of other cultures and have been lucky to experience the increased self awareness and empathy that exposure to other cultures develops. I am eternally curious and am fascinated to see how we, as humans, express ourselves and work together to solve problems.

In 2016 while working for a large global client I came up with an idea to develop a product that would help my team map out customer journeys so that we might be able to discover where and how to help companies innovate . My desire was to show our clients the most opportune moments to develop new products and services that would more directly impact their customers lives. Using the AI and data capabilities of IBM Watson we made it happen. We developed a research methodology and a product that we called Arcadia. Combining the results of one-on-one behavioral research and the vast data capabilities of Watson made for an application where customer insights suddenly came to life.

I’m here on LinkedIn.

My portfolio is here.