Canon
Head of Product and Design
2019 – 2021 · Sydney, NSW · eCommerce & Brand
Say 'Cheese' to Seamless Design: Crafting a Kodak Moment for Canon's UX
The Company
Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optical, imaging, and industrial products, such as lenses, cameras, medical equipment, scanners, printers, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
The Context
Two different platforms. I was invited to join Canon with the main purpose of leading the effort of bringing a then disjointed experience between the e-commerce and brand site and blending them into a single, unique experience that was representative of Canon's ethos and value offering.
Complex business environment. Canon operates has B2B and B2C operations and an organisational structure with distributed business units that loosely build on each other's goals, which is not a great environment to support product design and development in it's simplest form.
My Role
To lead, manage and up-skill the team, and oversee operations. My team was a mixed bag of different product-team members ranging from Product Managers, Product Designers, Marketing Automation and Content Specialists, with different degrees of seniority.
Although my management style is empowerment, I also had to be hands on and lead by example and slowly detach from the operations as my team started to get a hold of the new processes and tools to design and develop products in a lean user centred approach.
CASE STUDIES
Landing Pages
Successfully led the EOS R5 landing page project, showcasing strong leadership and delivery skills in guiding the team to create a captivating and immersive experience for users.
Product Strategy
Explore the process of untangling complexity, prioritizing impact, and building a roadmap to bring the business and users closer than ever.
Product Design Sprints
From engaging collaboration to seamless integration of Canon's brand website and e-commerce site
ENDORSEMENTS
“I feel lucky enough had the pleasure of working with Edgar during my early career as a UX/UI designer in Canon Australia. Edgar is a true leader, mentor, and great manager! I always get inspired by his design thinking, the way he solves UX problems, and stakeholder management. Edgar’s always so passionate about product design, and it also inspired me as his team member to dive into the UX world, his always willing to answer my question, and involve me in UX workshops even though I am a junior designer at that time. I really appreciated his mentoring and he is one who keeps inspiring me in my UX career along the way! Thank you, Edgar!”
“I've worked with Edgar on two occasions and both times he has been an impressive design thinker and leader. He is a deep well of knowledge when it comes to user centered design, and applies that thinking to how he approaches problems both strategically and tactically. On top of that he loves to share his expertise across the businesses that he works within. I hope to work with him again in the future!”
“Edgar is a highly attuned individual and as such is skilful in navigating his way through a complex organisation. He is great at bringing to the fore the best UX toolkit to unlock problem solving and take stakeholders on the journey. Edgar has been an invaluable part of driving key projects and upskilling his team in all areas of UX. He is creative and strategic in equal measure.”
“Few people have the opportunity to report to a manager who is also a coach and mentor — but I did when I worked for Edgar. I had the pleasure of working with him for the past year at Canon Australia, collaborating on a number of projects during that time. Edgar brought to Canon a design process that is collaborative and fun, we will continue to use this process well into the future (thanks Edgar). The process kept stakeholders informed and ensured everyone was aligned — even people who were initially on completely different pages. He made sure our morning stand up meetings were always fun with either a joke or a sing-along! Any employee would be lucky to have Edgar as a manager.”