Cris Parisi

Elevating visual storytelling and brand identities for top-tier businesses.

15+ years shaping visual brand identity, creative strategy & high-quality content for up to $200M portfolios of prominent consumer brands: Kayak, the Grammy’s, Save the Children. Design SME. Collaborative creative team hiring and mentorship.

EXPERIENCE

Design Principal
CP Design Studio | 2014-Present

Drive cutting-edge print & digital design solutions for brands: Kayak, Recording Academy (“Grammy’s”), State Street Corp.

  • Spiked client revenue up to 35% YOY with plans (SEO, SEM, social & web ads) maximizing client exposure / reach.

    • Crafted pixel-perfect mockups & high-quality design pattern details (design system compliant) by careful leadership of designers.

    • Enhanced customer engagement / CX with UX/UI audits to maximize deliverability, user satisfaction and usability. 

  • Grammy’s: Led events-based omni-channel (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X) marketing for award shows (2017-2020).

    • Mapped customer journeys, visualized concepts through storyboards.

    • Prioritized scalable information architecture, laid out detailed workflows around tech constraints, built intuitive interactions, prototyped user flows.

  • Kayak: Redesigned user experience of Welcome funnel. Manage relationships with external agencies, photographers, videographers and other creative partners.

  • State Street Corp.: Developed & deployed corporate communications to 15K staff (benefits, 
engagement activities).

    • Collaborated closely with product development, engineering, marketing and sales.

Creative Director, Design
TrueSense Marketing | 2020-2024

Spearheaded transformation into digital-forward, omni-channel, integrated marketing campaigns & creative content. Managed creative budget & team of 6 marketing professionals.

Integrated Marketing

Owned global client portfolio, e.g., largest client of record, Salvation Army & 2nd largest client segment, Food Banks (Feeding America & subs). 

  • Scaled to 50+% revenue contribution (RC) from $200M in client revenues / year.  

    • Spurred 33% growth with brand strategy of “bringing creative designs to life” on 
platforms/CRMs.

  • Expanded to $50M in individual client revenue by maximizing market exposure via elevating brand 
standards into digital initiatives (website, email, social and AR/VR).

  • Spiked by 120% one-time campaign gifts to generate largest-donation-ever for client. 

  • Grew monthly donor engagement by 5%. 

  • Increased user engagement by 25% for client with integrated omni-channel digital marketing, ads & messages.

Agency Marketing Capability

  • Led omnichannel digital marketing integration (TikTok, X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn).

  • Increased by 23% (or to 1K/mo.) traffic/visitors & by 15% conversion with website revamp with 
re-design of engaging blog experience. 

  • Improved user retention by 50% when created UX strategy governing cross-functional team collaboration.

  • Increased customer satisfaction (CSAT) with minimized or eliminated design rework by leveraging 
dev/engineering-design savvy & coding expertise.  

  • Slashed project time by 50% to 2-week average with E2E collaboration in design project management.

    • Delivered dev-ready detailed design specs / assets to engineering teams.  

    • Sped troubleshooting, patching & project scoping with web developers. 

    • Verified implementation quality. Led tracking of channel-based success metrics (engagement, 
 conversion, reach).

Digital Team Leadership

Built 1st digital design team of 6 marketing professionals (art directors, visual designers, paid media/ads, digital designers, copywriters).

  • Team termed “high performing” by account directors, account managers after turnaround of delayed projects.  

  • Awarded 3 promotions in-team in 6 mos., including creation of new, cross-project Principal SME role, after devised new resource allocation strategy based on fit.

  • Team received great feedback from clients for data-driven, dev-ready strategy.

  • Received 90+% management rating by direct reports (2021-2024) for development into strategic 
consultative SMEs.

    • Implemented career growth ladder & career development-oriented performance reviews.

Design Director
THD, Inc. | 2010-2020

Managed portfolio of social impact clients (UNHCR, Wounded Warrior, Project Hope, Arthritis Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Save the Children).

  • Increased client portfolio revenue by 20% YoY with new, upselling strategies / campaigns to existing & new clients. 

    • Improved client marketing scope using advanced UX strategy.

    • Developed UX strategies to identify opportunities within fundraising scope and achieve revenue goals.

    • Ensured web strategy alignment with client branding by conducting audits of client donation 
 platforms / databases.

  • Sped response time by 25% with improved accuracy after developed RFP template library for 
 cross-functional needs.

    • Introduced design system to consolidate and streamline creative assets.

  • Empowered user engagement & connection with brand values / mission (brand guidelines, annual reports, websites, E2E email campaigns).

    • Built complex design solutions in partnership with team of designers/developers. 

  • Led (& recruited) globally distributed design team of 20+. Hired as sole Design IC (Employee #12).

DesignLab UX Academy
UX/UI Certification

UX Fundamentals
Interaction Design
UX Strategy
NN/g

Bachelor of Arts
Graphic Design & Advertising
Flagler College
St. Augustine, Florida

EDUCATION

AI
Agile Frameworks
Animation
Brand Marketing
Brand Strategy
Brand Design
Content Marketing
Content Design 
Data Visualization
Design Strategy 
Design Technology
Design Thinking
Information Architecture
Journey Mapping
Operations
Landing Pages
Project Management
Team Hiring / Builds
UI/UX Design
UX Research
Video Production 
User Research
Visual identity
Web Design
Figma
Adobe CS
Miro
Notion
Workfront
UserTesting
Framer
Maze

EXPERTISE