Monish Subherwal

We brought Monish on to lead design for a high priority net new initiative. He very quickly learned the business context and understood the needs of the user, despite being new to the industry. Throughout the project he's balanced the practical constraints of near term requirements against the longer term vision for the project. Monish has a high quality bar for expected end user value, and works to make sure requirements meet that bar before they end up in the product. He's done all this with a great attitude and a strong cross functional orientation, making sure the entire team is aligned on the design vision as it evolves.

...Since joining Opower, Monish has led design efforts for a new investment area and has been instrumental in helping us not only define and deliver version 1.0, but also shape and communicate our vision for this solution area. Monish excels in applying an empathetic approach to understanding users, leveraging his vast experience in various industries to bring new skills and approaches to our team, and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to solicit feedback and gain alignment...[He is] an experienced UX designer, leader, and all around great teammate.

Monish is a very advanced designer, and he has a lot of technical expertise that is invaluable to the success of our product. I have learned a lot about design thinking through working with him, and I believe his systems of breaking down the work have allowed the BCE project to move forward in its objectives. His involvement in our team has allowed us to think outside the box, and consider opportunities for the solution that weren’t previously considered.

Not to mention, he has set the tone for the group, allowing for great empathy, teamwork, and exploration to become the culture of our team...

Monish is one of my favorite designers to work with. He combines a positive energy with a strong work ethic that not only makes him super productive, but also brings a team right along with him. Daily stand-ups on other teams can be tedious and repetitive, but never with Monish - he sets the agenda, cracks jokes, and keeps things moving. Ideas bubble out of him, and he's very open to feedback, never taking it personally. He's a terrific person to have on a team!

I had the pleasure of hiring and managing Monish at Yahoo! He picked-up the highly complicated and intricate enterprise subject matter in an amazingly short period of time. He was always thoughtful and thorough in his approach to design, always keeping the customer front and center in his work. He was someone that I could count on 100% not only to get the job done but to get it done with quality. He was a great team member and a joy to manage. I look forward to working with him again!

Monish is a gifted UX leader, able to engage cross-functional teams and substantially increase the collective level of thought within any project. He brings a mix of humor, thoughtful expertise and has both the energy and commitment to push all who work with him to an elevated standard of quality. His influence on a team raises everyone's game and their enthusiasm for their work.

Monish has a deep understanding of the methodologies of web design, and an ability to apply his knowledge of the most current theories to a practical application. He makes the effort to stay in front of best practices, and, during my time working with him, was eager to understand the operation and needs of the business beyond the confines of web design—believing, correctly, that the “form” of an operation’s web presence should be defined by the “function” of the larger business.

Monish leads and designs with mastery and high levels of accountability in stakeholder and project management. He was given a nearly impossible task of redesigning the organization's digital experience from top to bottom, yet he diplomatically collaborated across all units of the nonprofit, from staff to volunteer committees to the board. The result? An elegant and attractive digital footprint that set the bar at new heights for the association. He is a lot of fun to work with

Monish is an enthusiastic designer with a strong work ethic. Monish was the lead designer on a new product intended to support monetization managers at Yahoo. He was able to navigate the unknowns when it comes to designing a product from scratch. He put a process around the nebulous desire to serve a user group and delivered a product that met with rave reviews from users...

Monish was the only designer embedded with my team and thus supported multiple PM's and 10+ engineers, which meant he was pulled in many different directions. His strong work ethic and clear thinking and communication were a big asset to the team. He could transition quickly between working on high-level / conceptual design and detail oriented wireframes and flows, which was also a big plus. Lastly, he's just a really nice guy with a super positive attitude that made him a pleasure to work with.

Monish is an outstanding instructor, mentor and team leader with broad expertise across all areas of UX design. His keen intellect, problem-solving skills and ability to communicate complex concepts continuously elevated both his students and colleagues across the organization. As a team leader Monish played a central role in recruiting and selecting client companies, forming and supervising student teams, and successfully managing up to eight design teams simultaneously. As a thought leader he made critical contributions to our curriculum, improving existing curriculum as well as designing new learning modules. The success of our program was due in large part to Monish's important contributions and professionalism.

...Listing Monish's specific design strengths could take quite some time, so let's just hit the highest of the highlights:

• He is a dedicated user advocate, always bringing focus back to the user and their goals.
• He can process large amounts of mind-numbingly technical data.
• He is a champion of user research.
• He is wonderful at keeping a cross-functional team focused, even in difficult times
• His design communication skills and ability to build alignment are world class.

First and foremost, Monish is a joy to work with. His understanding of design and usability are genius-level to say the least and he exudes a calm, inspiring confidence amongst team members, no matter how challenging the project. Monish is exceedingly bright, a critical-thinking problem solver who is able to debug code, mockup wireframes, run heuristic analyses, and evangelize courses of action with ease. His focus is always on simplifying and enhancing the consumer's journey to a purchase, which was a refreshing perspective to have on the A/B testing team at Transamerica. Together we took a once-siloed program and made it an institutionalized part of the company's overall digital marketing strategy. No matter what the vertical, Monish will have a tremendously positive impact on any team he is a part of.