Alex Burgess |- |-
Alexander Burgess
Mo-
Email.-
Personal Objective
The ultimate object? To be happy! I’m working on my passion project in design education, building a free
online platform to allow anyone the ability learn the fundamentals of User Experience and its related tools
and design principles. I also thrive in operations and business efficiency and would love to run my own
design agency.
Notable Career Achievements
•
Within Elephant Room I progressed from a freelance Designer to General Manager within 3 years
•
Implemented a retainer business model which tripled development revenue in the first 18 months
•
Travelled overseas on numerous occasions to hire and build an in-house development team
•
Training and mentoring our design team on best practices in conjunction with development
Key Strengths
•
Reliable
•
Open to learning new ideas
•
Problem solver
Career History Overview
•
Elephant Room, 2016 – Current
•
Freelance Digital & UX Designer, 2015 - Current
•
eXia (now Hosted Network), 2012 – 2015
•
Amalgamated Holdings Limited, 2010 – 2012
Alex Burgess |- |-
Elephant Room
2016 – Current
Elephant Room is an integrated eCommerce digital agency, working with brands such as Lipton
(Unilever), Red Balloon (Big Red Group), Salesforce, Colliers, along with countless other fantastic
Australian businesses. During my time at Elephant Room I have progressed from a freelance UX
designer, to General Manager.
General Manager
2019 - Current
As General Manager, I manage all aspects of the service the agency delivers. I work directly with
the company directors and team leads to build programs that drive efficiency which boost margin
and profitability. I act as a senior leader within the agency and contribute to the team with process
improvement, resource management and business pitches.
Key Responsibilities
•
Responsible for resource management across all three (3) agency teams/domains. This includes
web development, creative and marketing
•
Calculating and monitoring profit margin on all engagements, with burndown tracking for projects
and management of efficiency across all team
•
Managing automation and optimisation across the business, either through new processes or
through implementation of new technology
•
Monitor individual team member performance based on the KPIs that dictate their role.
•
Communicate performance expectations to senior management based on mutually agreed
outcomes from the business directors
Head of Development
2017 – 2019
As Head of Development, I oversaw the performance and quality of the development domain within
Elephant Room. I worked with Technical Project Managers to align company objectives and lead
the training of the design team to work efficiently with the development team.
Technical Project Manager & UX Designer
2016 - 2017
As a Technical Project Manager, I worked directly with clients, designers and developers to bring
projects to life. During this time, I was also one of our UX Designers.
Alex Burgess |- |-
Contract UX Designer
2016
As a contracting UX designer, I worked with Elephant Room on client website wireframes and
designs. This included the initial briefing stages with clients and then the implementation of those
ideas into prototypes and mockups. To this day I still work closely with the design team to mentor,
motivate and build on new ideas and processes.
Freelance Digital & UX Designer - effio
2015 - Current
During my time at Elephant Room I’ve continued to work as a freelancer. My personal brand is effio.
Over the years I have worked on over 100 jobs, ranging from small ‘brochure’ websites, to web apps
used by companies and end users. Below are comments on different aspects of my freelancing career:
effio Tutorials – Passion Project
This is a platform built to educate other designers getting their foot in the market, or for designers to keep
up to date with the latest design trends and tools. The platform will host video, image and transcribed
tutorials covering a range of design principles, as well as guides for how to use common tools within the
UX design industry, such as:
•
Wireframes: Balsamiq & XD
•
Design: Photoshop & Figma
•
Prototyping & Optimisations: Invision & Avocode
The platform will be officially launched when a baseline of video tutorial content has been created. Given
this is a project that I’m working on solo, it takes time and I expect to have a beta system up and running
in early 2020 using Webflow and Youtube. You can stay up to date with the progress on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/effio.tutorials/
Scoping & User Architypes
I work with key stakeholders to produce scope of works. For larger applications, user architypes and
questionnaires are created to get insights and provide direction on the systems’ initial designs.
Wireframing
Using Balsamiq and XD, I’m tasked with creating the initial lo-fi prototypes of applications and websites to
help visualise the project’s front end structure and to act as a visual development scope document. The
mockups created are then added to Invision to more easily interpret the system flow, identify gaps in the
scope documents to mitigate scope creep, and provide the client an early preview of their product.
Alex Burgess |- |-
Design
Having used Photoshop extensively in the past to produce mockups, I have extensive knowledge in
utilising the tool most effectively. Recently I have shifted to designing using Figma as the tool is faster,
more agile and allows easy, instant collaboration with clients during the design process.
Prototyping
Invision is my tool of choice to build functional prototypes across desktop and mobile in a small amount
of time. It also allows for seamlessly gathering client feedback and version history.
Avocode
Utilising Avocode in the design to development handover process allows developers to more easily
extract assets and styles, substantially reducing the front end development time and minimising QA and
testing feedback.
Project Manager – eXia (now Hosted Network)
2012 - 2015
eXia (an old division of Hosted Network) was a Web Development and Digital Marketing company.
They produced custom built websites and online applications for businesses and individuals. They also
provided online marketing consultation for clients to boost company revenue/sales, increase sales
conversion rates, optimise ROI and also assist with generating strong brands.
Key Responsibilities
As a Project Manager my role was to manage a team of developers and sales members to generate
new business for the company, oversee the development of work and ensure the success of the eXia
division in the Superior IT Group.
Key Achievements
●
Rapid promotions within the company, moving from Marketing Assistant to Marketing Consultant
to Project manager all within 2.5 years
●
Revitalising the company and growing it’s revenue stream
●
●
Instilled trust to be able to work remotely full time from home within 1.5 years of working at the
company
Managed team members around the world
●
Trained new members of the team
Alex Burgess |- |-
Amalgamated Holdings Limited
2010 - 2012
Amalgamated Holdings Limited is one of Australia's top entertainment, hospitality, and leisure
companies, running entertainment groups such as Event Cinemas, Rydges Hotels, Thredbo Alpine
and more.
Key Responsibilities
During my high school years while undertaking my Higher School Certificate, and during the
beginning of University, I worked casually with Greater Union, AHL.
●
Customer Service Responsibilities
●
Adhering to OHS and safe work practices
●
Adhering to strict time schedules
●
Replenishing stock
●
Food and beverage preparation
Key Achievements
●
Optimising reporting methods through new systems
●
Received company awards for my continued work ethics
●
Successfully diffusing and correcting situations with disgruntled customers
●
Assisted with branded company newsletters and document designs
Alex Burgess |- |-
Education
University of Newcastle (Partial)
2012
I was enrolled at the University of Newcastle, undertaking a Bachelor of Information Technology. I took
time off as I was offered a job with the Superior IT Group, which I took to help build valuable work
experience. I may return to formal higher education in the future, however it would be in a field not
related to my career, such as science.
Example Subjects/Study Areas
●
Programming and application development in C#
●
Game Creation
●
Project Management
●
Multimedia Studies
●
Photography/Design
Lisarow High School
2006 - 2011
Achievements
Referees
Available on Request
Alex Burgess--
