Personified

What We Do is Who We Are

That puts it as simply and clearly as we believe it. What we do, in every aspect of our lives, defines who we are. That is why we have taken a different approach with our biographies. In addition to the standard background information (academic, prior professional experience), you’ll learn about what we are actually doing now, to achieve Symmetry in our personal and professional lives.

What we do is who we are; if what we did lacked symmetry then we really wouldn’t have a leg to stand on now would we?

• Suneet Bhatt
• Neal Draves
• Stephen Gay
• Neha Pathak

Suneet Bhatt

Mr. Suneet Bhatt has six years of experience in the private sector where he developed substantial skills in business and market strategy, business development, strategic partnerships and project management. In addition, he has substantive experience in quantitative and qualitative research, product and program development, and the RFI/RFQ/RFP process. Suneet is a team player and has supervised project officers with diverse backgrounds and skill sets.  His strengths lie in consensus building, problem solving, and delivering the highest quality, client-focused results. He also wants you to know that he led with “Mr. Suneet Bhatt” because many folks who hear or see his name for the first time have a hard-time figuring out his gender (telemarketers, direct mailers, past substitute teachers).

Suneet has an impressive track-record of top quality management, fiscal responsibility, qualitative and quantitative reasoning, evaluation skills and excellent client relationships. Ultimately, however, he brings with him a steady demeanor and the ability to laugh (sometimes even loudly) at himself.

Neal Draves

Neal’s background is a unique blend of formal business and management training combined with work in IT consulting, networking and web development. His career began an IT consultant at Keane, Inc. where he worked on several large $MM government projects. He developed strong project management and technology skills, but the predicted excitement of a first job quickly wore off and Neal decided to change direction by joining the Peace Corps. Since then his passion has been to apply the great equalizing power of information technology within the fields of philanthropy, international development and non-profits.

Neal has worked in a large variety of teams and environments - from overcoming barriers in cross-cultural teams in the Peace Corps to communication and implementing complex technology solutions in non-profit settings – he enjoys working on diverse and challenging projects. His strengths are in website and marketing design and development, not only with the nuts and bolts of a project but also towards high-level concept development and final deliverable quality. Most importantly Neal is interested in projects that strive to make an impact beyond the bottom line.

Stephen Gay

Stephen Gay is an award-winning designer with a passion for information architecture and interaction design. He began his career with a degree in industrial design from Carleton University in Canada. In his studies, Stephen focused on user-centered design and developing product interfaces for Nortel.

During the early nineties, Stephen was Senior Information Architect for Chicago's premier creative firms, Sapient and Hanna-Hodge. During his four years with these companies, Stephen contributed to the success of several Fortune 500 and international companies, including Lucent, Unisys, Manulife, Pecom, Reynolds, and AGEdwards-working in Chicago, New York, Toronto, and Argentina.

Stephen gained mobile experience as a design product lead at Motorola. Stephen worked on several phones and two major next generation platform working in Chicago, Korea and China. At Motorola, he was the design application lead for file management and media applications and maintained collaborations with Motorola Labs, Human Factors, and Industrial Design.

Stephen has independently consulted for clients such as Prudential, Bell South, Anthem, and Blue Cross, providing a variety of services that include usability testing, information architecture, requirements workshops, style guides, information graphics, and icon designs. In addition his diverse expertise and energy have benefited several successful start-ups including Bubbleshare , DogoNews, Fivelimes and MXPlay. In addition Stephen volunteers for the Make-A-Wish foundation of Illionois.

Neha Pathak

Over the past several years, Neha as been a member of one of the largest User Experience consulting firms in the US. During this time, Neha managed and worked on several projects for Fortune 100 companies, as well as successfully managed various client relationships. Her most recent projects have focused on the evaluation and design of user experiences in the telecommunications, travel, and financial industries. As a usability professional, Neha has a varied and diverse understanding of the evaluation of user experiences, and is most proficient with identifying business problems and solving them using an analytical/methodical process.

Her most notable recent projects have included successful evaluation and design of an online airline booking website, specifically the airline’s hotel booking site. After implementing recommendations based on research, the airline achieved the highest ever hotel booking month. She has also recently managed projects involving the evaluation of multiple commercially available mobile devices with a focus on the improvement of the task flow for common interactions with the devices. Additionally, Neha has combined various user experience evaluation methods for improvements in call center applications and internal financial applications for multiple banks.

Prior to entering the world of User Experience, Neha worked for Goldman Sachs & Co. as a client service analyst and was involved in the development of an online trading application. She received a Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction from DePaul University, and a Bachelor in Business Administration from Loyola University Chicago.

Neha is a member of the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) and an active member of the Chicago chapter of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). She has attended conferences in the US including the annual meeting of UPA and DUX 2007. Neha has also published and presented case studies for British Human-Computer Interaction Society, as well as joint publications for the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.