Company Leadership04

01Expertise and Practice Areas

All Of Our Secrets

  1. We only make digital products & services.

    Product Strategy, User Research, Design, Technology, Analytics & Optimization: everything you need to make a successful digital product or service, and nothing more.

  2. Prototypes, not presentations.

    In our experience, the biggest ideas usually come from hard work during iterative design and development. Forrester Research called our way of working “a model to follow.”

  3. One team: Client + Work & Co.

    We ask our clients to participate directly with us in an intensely collaborative process based on specific measures of success, rapid prototyping, and continuous testing and improvement. The result is one combined team, making things the right way, with less time invested in presentations and arbitrary deliverables.

  4. Fewer people. More senior people.

    Each client engagement is led by one of our partners. We’ve assembled an unprecedented level of hands-on talent under one roof to make this possible across multiple projects. We’re top-heavy, by design.

  5. Good products require good development.

    The best digital products and services are made by designers and engineers working together in the same room. We created Work & Co to offer the benefits of such collaborations at scale.

03Our Work: Virgin America Case Study

iOS. ANDROID. RESPONSIVE WEB.

The best digital ecosystem in travel.

Virgin America is making flying fun again. In 2014, the airline also decided to reinvent the digital travel experience.

After an exhaustive search for the right partner, the company chose Work & Co to design and engineer a new digital platform that could respond to modern travel needs and behaviors.

We partnered with Virgin America to design and develop the world’s first responsive airline website to meet the needs of modern travelers. As its digital agency of record, we extended the tech-forward experience to mobile in 2016, launching a new native app for iOS and Android. Within hours, Virgin America was the #1 featured app on both the App Store and Google Play.

Our Contributions

  • Strategy
  • Product Roadmapping
  • User Research
  • Design
  • Branding
  • Responsive Web Development
  • Software Application Architecture
  • iOS and Android Development
  • Quality Assurance
  • Analytics & Optimization

The Website

“The first radical rethinking of the flight booking experience in a decade.”

— WIRED

The First ResponsiveAirline Site

Who says airline websites are too complex to be responsive? The Work & Co technology team built a site that works wherever you are, so you have a great experience at any point of your trip, from a laptop to a mobile device.

Focused Measuresof Success

“In the early phases of the project, the Work & Co team determined that the client’s KPIs were driven by a few really important use cases, not by twenty of them. So they focused their attention on those and on doing fewer things beautifully well. And by getting the teams closer together, they were able to get feedback earlier. They did not spend time creating slick presentation decks, but instead built working prototypes of ideas—the CEO saw concepts for the site in the second week of the project. As a result, there were no big reveals, no gotcha surprises, and no selling.”

Digital FirstBranding

Virgin America has deployed Work & Co’s new look and feel across their other communication channels, from billboards in Times Square to airports. The face of Virgin America is changing, beginning with VirginAmerica.com. Illustrations by Build.

Technology-ledProcess

An amazing front-end experience is only possible with a robust technology solution backing it. Like most airlines, Virgin America’s booking technology is powered by Sabre, a decades-old back-end system. We had to create an architecture that would provide the flexibility we needed. To achieve radical changes such as a single-page booking flow, we used and extended AngularJS on top of a layer that sits between Sabre and the front-end.

Outcomes

After successfully A/B testing the new design against the old, Virgin America’s reinvented site was released. Virgin America announced an IPO following two successful quarters running the new site. It has exceeded performance goals in the following areas:

Increase in conversion rate
Decrease in web-related phone calls
Fastest loading airline website

The App

“This is no ordinary airline app.”

— Digital Trends

The industry’s fastest flight booking

Most airlines don’t prioritize capturing incremental booking revenue in-app, but we believe that the app should be your travel companion from the moment you plan your trip to when you land. So we made the fastest booking experience in the industry—guests can book a ticket in 60 seconds or less.

Smarter, focused,and context aware

To make traveling as effortless as possible, the app serves up information personalized to a guest’s travel schedule. 24 hours before a flight, it shifts into travel mode, showing guests only the most critical information first: check-in, boarding pass, and flight alert information.

Two Native Apps,Less Code

No shortcuts were taken. To build an app that is simple, enjoyable, and fast, we envisioned a new strategy for cross-platform mobile app development.

We developed iOS and Android simultaneously. In order to speed up development and reduce maintenance, we created a shared layer of business logic for all platforms. So when we have to make a change, it updates across every platform, a strategy so radical it was featured in The Next Web.

Outcomes

  1. Featured app in App Store and Google Play
  2. Increase in mobile conversion rate
  3. Downloads in less than three months

Industry Responses

  • “Work & Co was a completely different kind of partner. They took something very complex and created a simple, beautiful, and intuitive user experience.”

    LUANNE CALVERT, CMO, VIRGIN AMERICA

  • “The result is a site that gets flyers booked nearly twice as fast, on any kind of device.”

    Wired

  • “Most impressive industry evolution.”

    UX Awards

  • “Both the process and the outcome offer techniques that other companies looking to build innovative products and services can follow.”

    Forrester Research

  • “An impressively simple experience for booking, managing, and checking in to flights.”

    Travel + Leisure

Honors

  • 5webby awards
  • 3pixel awards
  • 3cannes lions
  • 1clio
  • 1digiday
  • 1one show
  • 1UX awards
  • 1ces innovation award
  • 1
  • 1

See Also

04Company Leadership

Top heavy, by design.

  • Gene Liebel

    Partner, Product

    Guides clients in their efforts to envision, plan and roll out best-in-category products and services. Recognition from Cannes Lions, Ad Tech, Communication Arts, the Emmys, One Club, others. Past life: Co-founder, Chief Strategy Officer at Huge.

  • Felipe Memoria

    Partner, Design

    Lead designer of acclaimed products for Virgin America, TED, CNN, HBO GO, and Eurosport. Winner of 30+ industry awards including two Cannes Lions. Hired and mentored 100+ designers. Author of best-selling digital design book in Brazil. Past life: Partner, Global Head of UX at Huge.

  • joe

    Joe Stewart

    Partner, Design

    Designer, first & foremost. Focus: design as a medium, with a strong bias toward prototyping. 18 years of digital product design experience. Cannes Lion winner for virginamerica.com. Fast Company: Most Creative People in Business. Past life: Partner, Global Head of Creative at Huge.

  • marcelo

    Marcelo Eduardo

    Partner, Technology

    Focus: technology strategy and development for mobile, responsive design, connected TVs, and other consumer technologies. Rolled out media platforms for Google, Showtime, YouTube. Past life: VP at Huge; R&D at the Nokia Institute of Technology.

  • Mohan Ramaswamy

    Partner, Strategy

    Helps clients systematically plan and build digital products, capabilities, and organizations. Led Work & Co's engagements for Virgin America, Google, AOL, TripAdvisor, and the NBA. Past life: McKinsey, where he established new business models and product roadmaps for organizations in the media, retail, and financial services sectors.

  • Diego Zambrano

    Partner, Design

    Focus: designing for new businesses and brands. Led product strategy and design for new digital platforms for Work & Co clients Showtime, TripAdvisor and Met Opera. Founder of start-up Bondsy, featured in Apple App Store as “Best New App of 2013.” Past life: Senior Partner, Creative Director at Ogilvy NYC.

  • Tiago Luchini

    Partner, Technology

    Software planning and development, from technical discovery through launch. Leads desktop, mobile and CMS development efforts for all clients including Virgin America, ABC and the NBA. Columbia University MBA. Past life: Manager at Ixonos, where he oversaw large-scale technical projects and ramped up mobile device R&D centers in Beijing and Chengdu (China).

  • rachel

    Rachel Bogan

    Partner, Product Management

    Leads Product Management as a team and discipline. Shipped digital products and shaped digital strategy for HBO GO, Disney, Diageo, Google, Target, FreshDirect, and various start-ups. MBA: NYU Stern School of Business. Past life: VP at Digitas.

  • Jon Jackson

    Partner, Design

    Leads design across brand-focused engagements. Has created integrated brand experiences for Target, Chase Bank, and Gucci. Recognition includes Communication Arts, The Webby Awards, Cannes Lion, and others. Past life: Global Creative Director at Huge, where he led design across 12 offices.

  • casey

    Casey Sheehan

    Partner, Design

    15 years at the intersection of design and technology, including partnerships with Apple, Audi, Nike, and Target. Winner of the industry’s highest honors, including a Cannes Design Gold Lion. Past life: Executive Creative Director at Huge, where he led a new group that designed digital experiences exclusively for Apple.

  • Thadeu Morgado

    Partner, Design

    Focus: multiplatform product design. Success stories: design of iPad, iPhone, Android, and Smart TV versions of HBO GO, the mobile experience for MTV, and the customer experience for Comcast. Past life: Product Design Director at Huge, where he led and expanded the Product Design discipline.

  • Jessica Bauer-Greene

    Associate Partner, Design

    Led design of award-winning digital experiences for Target, Nike, Chase, Twitter. Excels at translating complex briefs and business requirements into digital experiences. Past Life: Founded and ran Brooklyn-based design firm for 5+ years. Former Creative Director at Huge, where she launched the SF office and grew it to a team of 40 people.

  • Oliver Dore

    Partner, Technology

    Coder with a passion for combining technology, design and UX. Strong focus on emerging web technologies and client-side application development. Leads the front-end team at Work & Co. Invited to speak at Google's AngularJS Europe conference. Lead developer for virginamerica.com, Google, and HBO Connect. Past life: Lead developer for Google, HBO, and Bloomberg.

  • Caleb Yarian

    Caleb Yarian

    Associate Partner, Strategy

    Develops product and brand strategies for Work & Co clients, including Apple and T-Mobile. Synthesizes information, develops insights, and drives tactical execution. Past life: Strategy and creative direction for various technology and consumer goods brands.

  • Chris Alden

    Technology Director

    Strategic technical thinking with a focus on empowering teams to build one-of-a-kind digital products. Leads development on engagements including Celine, Mailchimp, Lyft, and Planned Parenthood. Masters in Interactive Technologies from NYU Tisch. Past Life: Associate Technology Director for Spies & Assassins.

  • muriel

    Muriel Alvarez

    Group Director, Product Management

    Focus: leading great teams, delivering amazing digital products. 15 years experience in program management, across a variety of industries for clients such as Wall Street Journal, Samsung, Ford Motor Company, Pepsi, and other Fortune 100 firms. Past life: Director, Program Management at Huge.

  • Laura Pence Ambrose

    Group Design Director

    Brings concepts to life through motion and storytelling. Has created experiences for Apple, HBO, Nike, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Chase, and The White House. Past life: Creative Director at Huge, overseeing content creation.

  • Fernando Andrade

    Technology Director

    Software engineer with product management mindset. MSc. in Computer Science with focus on distributed systems and 10 years of software development experience. Past life: Co-founded an e-commerce startup in Brazil and developed apps for Samsung, Deutsche Telekom, and Globo Network.

  • Vitor Andrade

    Design Director

    Multi-disciplinary designer with a track record of systematically blending branding, strategy, and experience design to create outstanding digital products. Led design for clients including, Nike, Google, Converse, and Samsung. Past Life: Design Director at R/GA

  • James Ayres

    James Ayres

    Design Director

    Designed and directed award-winning digital experiences for some of the world’s smartest brands, including Apple, Honda, and AT&T. BDes York University/Sheridan College. Past life: Art Director at Critical Mass Toronto.

  • Francesco Bertelli

    Design Director

    Award-winning work for clients including Syfy, Target, and American Express. Hybrid background with over 15 years of experience designing and developing. Past life: Design Director at Ogilvy & Mather.

  • Kory Bilowus

    Director, Teams

    Leads resourcing operations at Work & Co, matching projects with the right teams to ensure the delivery of great digital products. Has managed large-scale projects and teams for clients including Dyson, Nike, IBM, and Guthy-Renker. Past life: Senior Group Resource Manager at R/GA.

  • Brock Boddie

    Group Director, Product Management

    Focus: Shipping exceptional digital products. 17 years of experience in digital product design and development as well as consulting operations. Has led award winning engagements for The Four Season and Think with Google. Past life: General Manager for Huge Oakland and Toronto.

  • Andre Carvalho

    Andre Carvalho

    Technology Director

    Mobile architecture and development specialist, leading projects including Virgin America's iOS and Android apps. Has developed more than 100 mobile apps. Past life: Founder of tech consulting firm working with Nokia, NET, and UOL.

  • Daniele Codega

    Design Director

    Partners with clients on strategic and systematic design of large scale digital products. Has led work at the intersection of physical and digital, media, and luxury for companies such as Apple, Gucci, Samsung. Past life: Product Design Director at Elephant. Head of Design and UX at Reuters. First Creative Director of Huffington Post.

  • Nick DiLallo

    Nick DiLallo

    Writing Director

    Integrates writing into the design process, giving every digital product a personality. Balances creativity with clarity for brand voice and UX copy. Writes across platforms for clients including Etsy, Equinox, and Planned Parenthood. Past life: Creative Director at Mekanism.

  • Neil Duggan

    QA Director

    15 years of experience breaking digital products. Experienced Quality Assurance leader on projects for Nike, Calvin Klein, Nokia, and Verizon. Past life: Quality Assurance Manager at AKQA.

  • Nícolas Eberienos

    Design Director

    Focus: Ensuring every design is executed with simple and intuitive usability. Has led engagements from concepting through launch for clients including Marriott, Showtime, YouTube, and Oi. Past Life: Digital Designer at Globo.com.

  • Zeh Fernando

    Technology Director

    Over two decades of front-end development experience. Success stories: a first-of-its-kind digital soda fountain for Pepsico and innovative retail experiences for Patrón and Mountain Dew. Past life: Principal Developer at Firstborn.

  • Rachael Greer

    Rachael Greer

    Director of Finance

    Leads finance and operations for Work & Co globally. She has a passion for managing and agency operations and finance. Over 20 years of project management and agency operations experience working on clients including Pepsi, P&G, WalMart, and MasterCard. Past Life: Director of Operations at Peter Mayer.

  • Aleks Gryczon

    Design Director

    Focus: designing unique and intuitive cross-platform experiences. Creative lead on projects spanning Apple, ALDO, The Met Opera, and Smithsonian Channel. Work has been honored by the One Show, Pixel Awards, Fast Company, and The Webby Awards. Past life: Lead Designer at Frog.

  • jenny

    Jenny Hirsch

    Director, Product Management

    Leads complex programs to support great teams in delivering strong products. Has led enterprise builds, mobile app development, and strategic frameworks for clients including Comcast, Google, and Lowe's Home Improvement. Past life: Director, Program Management at Huge.

  • Steve Kuhn

    Group Director, Product Management

    Focus: intersection of business requirements and user needs. 20 years experience defining and creating digital products for Google, Marriott, and World Health Organization. Carnegie Mellon instructor: digital design and user research methodologies. Past lives: Fox Mobile, eBay.

  • Marcio Leibovitch

    Marcio Leibovitch

    Director, Rio de Janeiro

    Leader, Work & Co's Brazilian offices. More than 20 years of experience in product strategy, customer research, UX, design and prototyping. Past life: UX Director, Yu Centrik, Canada.

  • Laura Lessa

    Design Director

    Focus: Designing simple, usable experiences for complex challenges. Has created digital products the world uses for clients including Comcast, Oi, Itaú, and Morgan Stanley. MA in Interactive Media from Middlesex University, London. Past life: Experience Director at Huge.

  • Caitlin Lillie

    Director, Talent

    Leads talent operations at Work & Co, including recruiting and resourcing. Dual background in digital product management and global digital talent acquisition. MBA: Georgetown University. Past life: Director, Mobile Products at American Express.

  • Alexandre Lima

    Director, Product Management

    Over 20 years of experience working on projects with complex technical requirements and distributed teams. Leads multi-platform engagements with clients including Vivo and Gol. Past life: Led app development at Citi.

  • Lindsay Liu

    Group Director, Marketing

    Multi-channel digital marketer who has built, launched, and grown brands and experiences for leading B2B and B2C companies. Award-winning work has been featured in The New York Times, WIRED, Fast Company, and The Guardian. Past life: Global Director, Marketing at Method.

  • Nemanja Niciforovic

    Nemanja Niciforovic

    Technology Director

    Problem solving through code since 2005. Brings love for software architecture, design patterns, and modern JavaScript frameworks to clients including Virgin America, the NBA, Disney, and Oscar. Past life: Development lead for projects at Google, Chase, Citibank, MetLife, and FX Networks.

  • Narguess

    Narguess Noshirvani

    Group Director, Product Management

    Leads multidisciplinary teams from strategy to launch. Shipped products for clients including Time Warner Cable, MSNBC.com, BBC, Marimekko. Co-founded a travel and product discovery startup. Past life: Director, Client Services at Method.

  • Igor Oliveira

    Group Technology Director

    Senior software developer fascinated by the underlying essence of computer concepts with a passion for open source as a development model. Focus: Systematic problem solving. Past life: Software Engineer at Samsung and Nokia.

  • Rupal Parekh

    Director, Brand

    Launch strategy and messaging development to ensure the success of digital products. Thirteen years experience in content strategy and execution. M.S. Columbia University. Past lives: Strategic advisor for Valley startups; Editor at Advertising Age.

  • Scott Permar

    Director, Product Management

    A decade of experience delivering digital products and campaigns for Audi, Nike, and the Obama White House. Passionate about driving strategy and connecting it seamlessly to execution. Past life: Program Director AKQA.

  • Luciano Pouzada

    Design Director

    Brings a holistic approach to design. Has launched unforgettable experiences for clients including Eurosport, FCA, Submarino Viagens, and Discovery Channel. Masters in Design from ESDi School of Design. Past Life: Executive Experience Design Director at Huge Brazil

  • sarah

    Sarah Sampsel

    Design Director

    Over 10 years of experience with digital design and product development, with a focus on content and media. Graduate School of Journalism at Georgetown University: Adjunct professor of web design. Past life: Director of Digital Strategy and Design, Washington Post.

  • Vanessa Sant'Anna

    Vanessa Sant’Anna

    Technology Director

    Full stack Engineer with expertise in software design and test-driven development. Background in agile development, with a passion for optimization. Has worked with clients including Delaware Life, Globo, Charity Water and NBC Universal. Past Life: Engineering Director at Pivotal Cloud Foundry, NYC.

  • Parker Sapp

    Director, Product Management

    Focus: partnering with clients to find solutions - even for the most ambiguous and complex business problems. Over 10 years of experience supporting interdisciplinary teams in design, strategy, and delivery. Past life: Executive Producer at R/GA.

  • Rodrigo Senra

    Technology Director

    Focus: machine learning and data-driven development of adaptive digital products. Dual background in software industry and academia (M.Sc & Ph.D). Developed products for applications as varied as industrial automation and publishing. Past life: Senior Principal Data Scientist at EMC, Web Semantics at Globo.com.

  • Stanko Tadic

    Stanko Tadic

    Technology Director

    Passionate developer combining over a decade of hands-on experience with a love for cutting-edge web development. Specializes in JavaScript and application architecture with an eye for UI and UX details. Clients include Marriott, Twitter, and Mastercard. Past life: CTO at Null Object, Team lead at Humanity Inc.

  • Fabricio Teixeira

    Design Director

    14 years of experience in digital design. Uses systematic thinking to simplify complexity for technology clients such as Google, Samsung, and Intel. His projects have been recognized with over 40 awards, including Cannes, D&AD, and Fast Company. Past life: Creative Director at R/GA.

  • Dever Thomas

    Design Director

    Sets and executes creative direction for clients such as YouTube, Aesop, and Virgin America. Named one of HOW Magazine's Young Creatives to Watch. Past life: Designer at Method.

  • Isabela Tosta

    Director, Product Management

    Transforming complex business needs into exceptional digital products for over 15 years. Specializes in managing multidisciplinary teams and large scale, multi-channel engagements. Executive MBA: FDC-Brazil. Past life: Digital Product Manager at Oi.

05Facts About Us

Employees

Who care about doing three things well: Product Strategy, Design, and Engineering. That’s it.

Headquarters

DUMBO, Brooklyn. With offices in Portland, Oregon, and São Paulo, Brazil.

Partners

And every project is directly overseen by one of them. We’re “top-heavy” on purpose; in our experience, senior, hands-on talent creates the best digital products and services.

Big Reveals

We form a team with our clients and deliver prototypes, not presentations.

Repeat business rate

Nearly all of our clients have offered us additional projects.

Days to a prototype

For most projects, we complete a full design cycle and begin testing with consumers on a prototype within one month.

Born outside the U.S.

It takes a global perspective to build products and services the world uses every day.

New Platforms

Now live on Xbox, the new Showtime experience will soon launch on 4 additional video game consoles and smart TVs.

Page weight of VirginAmerica.com

Using AngularJS for the build, we halved the page weight of the average airline site.

  • 00 Introduction
  • 01 Expertise
  • 02 Clients
  • 03 Virgin America
  • 04 Leadership
  • 05 Facts
  • 06 News
  • 07 Careers