Matt MacQueen is vice president of product and design at ITHAKA. He leads a growing team of product managers and designers on a mission to deliver a platform and product suite that improves and advances research and learning. The team is committed to designing a holistic customer experience, where every touchpoint across brand, marketing, deep product interactions, and outreach are seamlessly conceived and beautifully designed. Matt’s philosophy and ITHAKA’s approach focuses on deeply understanding our users and constituents and developing solutions that delight and further their work in meaningful ways.
Before coming to ITHAKA in 2018, Matt joined the startup Coursera, the largest platform for online university courses, as their first director of product design, completing a tight triad with engineering and product management. Coursera grew from a Stanford spin-out startup to over 100M users. During a 3 year span of rapid growth phase, Matt built Coursera’s product design, UX research and content strategy practice from Series B through Series D maturity. He was interviewed regarding change in higher education in the film Design Disruptors which screened globally in 2016.
Previously, Matt was a design director at Motorola, first in Chicago and ultimately in Silicon Valley, during their rebirth as an all-Android smartphone company. Following an acquisition by Google, Matt directed design of mobile software + service experiences on the Moto X smartphone 2012 with voice recognition, contextual awareness, and a gesture-based camera that set new benchmarks for speed and ease of use.
Matt is a lifelong learner with a deep passion for education and mentorship. He has spoken at design and professional mentoring organizations for under-represented communities in technology. Matt has taught digital product design at the University of Michigan’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and seeks to unite the challenges of educational opportunity with digital technologies.