Hello.
I’m Simon.
After years designing and building products for other companies, I founded BKRXY. Today, I work independently on client projects and products of my own.
On the web since
the late ’90s.
I’ve designed and built community platforms, conference websites, ecommerce systems, and video subscription services.
Some started from scratch. Others grew through years of work with the same team. That experience shapes how I approach each new project.
Design & code.
Back and forth.
I move between how something should feel and how it needs to work. Designing helps me see the possibilities; building helps me work through the details.
Running and cycling give me space to think. I often return to the screen with a different way into the problem.
Her name
is Brooklyn.
My daughter is named after the place where I grew up—a borough shaped by different cultures, ideas, and points of view.
Being her father has made me more thoughtful about the people on the other side of what I create. Their perspective matters in every design decision.
On my
own terms.
In 2022, I left Adweek and founded BKRXY. Today, I work independently, bringing product strategy, design, and development together.
The projects below document the work that led me here, including years of building and improving platforms at Social Media Week.
HeyMama Connect
Design and product strategy for a membership community of working mothers.
SMW+
Design and development of a video subscription service for marketers.
SMWONE
Concept, branding, and website for a virtual conference series.
SMW Insider
A subscription platform for live and on-demand conference video.
SMW Registration
Conference registration, attendee management, and check-in.
SMW Cities
Conference websites for schedules, speakers, sponsors, and pass sales.
SMW Ecommerce
A multi-city ecommerce platform for conference passes.
Brand Leaders Summit
Branding and website development for Brand Leaders Summit.
SMW 2020 Look and Feel
Creative direction for SMW’s 2020 conferences.
SMW 2019 Look and Feel
Creative direction for SMW’s 2019 conferences.
SMW 2018 Look and Feel
Print and digital design for SMW’s 2018 conferences.
Social Media Week
Redesign and development of SMW’s conference, editorial, and video platform.
The roles
behind the work.
Agencies, startups, community platforms, publishing, and live events. These are the roles and teams that shaped my approach.
Founder
BKRXY
Miami-based product strategy, design, and development consulting services influenced and inspired by family, work, and life.
VP, Product Design & Strategy
Adweek
Working across Editorial, Marketing, Sales, Events, and Community departments at Adweek, I play a role in enhancing, improving, and solving user journey flows and interfaces for the companies web products.
- User Experience Research
- User Experience Strategy
- Digital Product Design
- Newsletter UX/UI
VP, Head of Product
HeyMama.co
I managed and lead an offshore development team in building and scaling the company's web products. In my role as Product lead, I'm accountable, decisive, and strategic as I collaborate with other department leads, along with our CEO, our co-founders, and the company's board of directors in formulating a vision and executing our collaborative strategy.
- I lead my department in building a proprietary CMS and a private, paywalled, subscription-based community platform built with Angular and NESTJS that provides a one of a kind experience for our members to engage, discover, connect, network, support, and grow their professional and personal relationships with other like-minded working moms
- I lead and oversee the execution of all creative and interface-based work, both designing and front-end developing our UI and UX on our new platform.
- I prototype and create a variety of presentations that aim to provide a future-facing product strategy for all of our key stakeholders, including our executive team and the company's board of directors and investors.
- I'm also leading the company's privacy, security, and compliance efforts in attaining SOC2 compliance. I'm managing all aspects of our newly formed vendor relationships with our IT providers, Contango IT and Vanta, who monitor all of our company policies and remaining tasks as we progressively move forward in performing our audit in the near future.
VP, Digital Product Design & Strategy
AdWeek
AdWeek aquired Social Media Week, my former employer, and I began a new chapter in my professional career by joining the AdWeek team.
- Social Media Week digital product management
- Events platform strategy and design
- Digital product user experience and design
SVP - Head of Design & Technology
Social Media Week
Senior leader, Full-Stack Developer and Creative Director at Social Media Week, a worldwide technology and marketing conference that takes place in 30+ cities annually. Responsible for the innovative development and design of of the conference’s complex global platforms, as well as leading all aspects of event & speaker management systems, e-commerce platforms, in-house check-in software for on-site registration, subscription-based video platforms, and user management systems.
- Designed, developed and support a complex web platform that powers the entire online conference experience and also serves as a real-time media site for the distribution of editorial content and live and on-demand video subscription services
- Developed check-in systems for managing attendees onsite during registration and architected hardware/software equipment for printing attendee badge information with QR codes
- Designed and developed SMW Insider (smwinsider.org), a video subscription platform which provides access to 1000s hours of conference video content to paying subscribers, both live and and OnDemand.
- Serve as primary brand and technical liaison for global and local teams
- Conceptualize and design all digital and physical print creative
Consultant, Web Developer
Firmsconsulting
Architected, designed, developed, and aided in marketing firmsconsulting.net, a site which aids Ivy league students from Yale, Harvard, and Princeton in acquiring interview skills and in gaining employment as management consulting leaders through a vast library of video, audio and editorial content.
- Designed and developed a subscription based OnDemand video platform
- Developed a community based platform enabling members to interact with one another and helped grow it to over 4000 members
Web Director
Tisha Creative, LLC
Project managed, designed and developed a variety of web based content and executed social media campaigns, digital marketing strategies, and e-marketing campaigns for boutique design agency based in Hoboken, NJ, including clients such as such as Howard Stern, HBO, U.S. News, Daily News, The City of Hoboken, NY Yankees, Bass Shoes, The Sak, Rescue Ink, and Mommies 247.
- Build a web department within a primarily print-focused creative agency
- Launched 2 community peer-to-peer sites with well over 10k members. At the time, both sites/businesses (hMAG.com and Mommies247.com) were featured on Wordpress.org as the most exemplary examples of the platform.
- Helped the city of Hoboken raise money after Hurricane Sandy by providing my services as a designer and developer in launch a platform that raised millions for rebuilding the city.
Co-Founder / Web Director
hMAG, Hoboken Lifestyle Magazine
I co-founded hMAG - a bi-monthly magazine, a lifestyle brand, and a member-driven community news and events platform.
- Designed and developed a platform with a community of over 8000 accounts
- Was instrumental in conceptualizing and bringing HMAG’s experiential platform to life, including 3 large-scale music festivals driving 10,000+ attendees, with bands such as The Walkman, School of Seven Bells, and Tokyo Police Club and sponsors such as Ben & Jerry's, GBX, Prudential Center, and the NJ Devils.
- Helped to organize monthly mixers that brought the local Hoboken community together. Mixers were held at local communities and helped raise money for local charities.
Web / Brand Consultant
Rebuild Hoboken Relief Fund
Created, designed, and developed branding collateral including logo and website for the organization, which to date has raised millions to help Hoboken residents and businesses receive financial aid after super storm Sandy.
Partner, CTO
Hoboken Mommies / Mommies 247
Designed and developed a successful mom-based social networking community, reaching 3,000 members only a few months after its launch. Established a social media presence for the site, created several e-marketing campaigns. and developed a CMS platform to aid the founders in publishing content. The platform was designed to manage members, events, articles, group discussions, classifieds, and ads.
IT, Designer, Developer
Ricatto Enterprises, East Village Development Group
Maintained and administered the company’s network and software utilizing Windows 2003 Small Business server. Created all branding elements, including designing and developing various CMS-powered web sites, logos, brochures, letterheads, and business cards. Designed, developed, and administered an interactive web site structured around a comprehensive database controlled through my own custom CMS system enabling anyone in the office to update the numerous apartment listings available under the company's privately owned buildings located in the East Village.
Author of "Livemotion 2: A Beginner's Guide
McGraw Hill
Having noticed my work with Adobe Livemotion 1, The McGraw-Hill Companies, contacted me to author a book entitled "Livemotion 2: A Beginner's Guide". The 540 page book, which took me 9 months to write was the very first book to come out after the software was released. The flash-based application released by Adobe Systems on which the book was written on, was in beta phase at the time. I not only took part in learning the new version of the software while writing the book, but also participated as an Adobe Systems beta tester for the software. The book was aimed at educating readers on creating flash-based content. The application was discontinued a year later with Adobe's purchase of Macromedia. Several interface features of Livemotion 2 are now a part of Adobe Systems' Flash software.
Art / Web Director
Designer Outlet
Designer Outlet was a startup e-commerce company offering designer apparel for women, men, and kids at a discounted price. At the peak of its span it was in direct competition with bluefly.com. Designed and developed new features for the site, photographed and photoshopped content, and managed online inventory.