Hi, I’m Cara, a multi-disciplinary design manager. I care about making products that solve real problems and are a breeze to use.

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Want to learn more about my expertise leading teams or see my portfolio? Shoot me an email at carapneel[at]gmail[dot]com

    • Managed a team of 8 UX/UI designers, covering all aspects of product design across six internal and client-facing platforms.

    • Led the design of the Financial Wellness platform and successfully delivered key product design initiatives, including the launch of iOS and Android apps, which generated $8M in new ARR and was recognized with the Aite-Novarica 2022 Digital Wealth Management Impact Award for Financial Wellness.

      • Generated an additional $2M+ in ARR by launching gamification features, providing access to financial coaching for over 350,000 users.

      • Redesigned the client onboarding experience, resulting in a 30% increase in user activation across key client accounts

    • Partnered with stakeholders in business, operations, and analytics to refine design priorities, define the product roadmap, and align on strategic vision.

  • August 2020 – February 2021 (Contract)

    • Facilitated engaging lectures and hands-on activities, resulting in a 96% program completion rate

    • Hosted office hours to address student inquiries and evaluated student projects, providing actionable feedback on student work

  • May– August, 2019

    • Conceptualized and created a text-free UI kit for AdobeXD to enhance access to accessibility tools in prototyping, viewed over 1.9k times on Behance

    • Authored and published articles on designing for voice UI, shared with the Adobe blog’s audience of ~58,000 monthly readers

Education

  • I completed my graduate studies at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where I learned a wide range of both physical and digital design skills. My thesis project used augmented reality for data visualization.

  • I got my start as an Honours Psychology student at McGill. I still use the lessons I learned about perception, emotion, and motivation every day in my work as a designer.

Skills

Leadership

Team management, mentorship, performance reviews, delegation, stakeholder management

Strategic

Product strategy, roadmap planning, competitor analysis, presentation skills, verbal & written communication

Technical

User research, interaction design, prototyping, information architecture, usability testing, inclusive design, Figma, Miro, Adobe CC, Jira

talk to me about

what i'm reading

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the great british bake off

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latin pop music

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iPhone photography

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what i'm reading • the great british bake off • latin pop music • iPhone photography •