Also known as, Sankar VemaRecently moved back to Washington, D.C. from San Francisco, live in Adams Morgan and the owner of @puggle - the only puggle with his own pet cat.
I also like long walks on the beach, especially when the walks are to a bar and the beach is all-inclusive.
I’m not looking for employment offers, but, that doesn’t mean we can’t work together. I’m always interested in:
- Speaking Engagements
- Early-stage Investment Opportunities
- Consulting Partnerships
- Ranting & Raving over a Beer
Serving a ‘Tour of Duty’ I’ve been asked to utilize the unique skills and experiences I’ve accumulated 4 over the past decade, to serve my country. It’s a tremendous honor to be selected, it’s an enormous privilege to serve and it’s an overwhelming opportunity to make an impact, on a massive scale.
The program pairs top innovators from the private sector, non-profits and academia with top innovators in government to develop solutions that:
- Save Taxpayer Money
- Fuel Job Creation
- and, Save Lives!
Designing the design team. After a successful acquisition with Twitter; my business partner, our team and I joined and immediately hit the ground running. During my tenure, I got to experience the brand redesigned, profiles re-imagined, events discovered, in-Tweet media, filtered photos, Twitter Music and Vine!
I was brought on to help lead and grow the design team; most specifically, I was focused on:
- Establishing formal design processes
- Culture, collaboration and retention
- Recruitment and outreach initiatives
- Lead design strategy implementation
Columbia Business School Columbia’s new program provided me an amazingly flexible, yet intense, opportunity to continue my education while not stopping the adventure that has become my career. I have four years to complete the program and a life-time to apply what I’ve learned.
The program is designed for executives and entrepreneurs, my current academic focus is on:
- Business Management
- Executive Leadership
- Digital Marketing Strategy
- Finance and Accounting
A designer’s dream come trueSince co-founding a design agency and watching its success result in an adventurous exit, we’ve joined the amazingly talented team @Twitter. They said it best, “we don’t want to change you, we want you to change Twitter” ... and we plan to. My new role: to design the design team.
Today we celebrate all of our accomplishments, none of which would be possible without thanks to:
- Alex Giron, my busines partner
- Dan Drinkard, our first employee
- Kerry Gunther, keeping a dream alive
- The entire web design community!
Yale School of ManagementYale provided me an amazing opportunity to participate in a professional development program specifically designed for creative leaders. The Ivy League institution left me with a fundamental understanding of business principles and their diverse application.
The program covered everything from Queueing Theory to the Supply Chain, as well as:
- Organizational Innovation
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Financial Accounting
- Operations & Negotiations
The opportunity of a life-timeFor over two years I worked along-side the most respected design institution in the world, Apple. I was a part of a select research & development team innovating next generation interactions and interfaces — most specifically pushing the limits of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
My contributions were focused primarily on buidling and managing the creative team, as well as:
- Product Strategy
- Project Management
- Research
- Brand/User Experience Design
Building a coworking communityWe took a void and filled a 6,000 square foot space with a custom developed environment specifically designed for creatives and collaboration.
Canvas is home to over twenty early-stage & independent companies.
Canvas was founded in early 2012 to serve a community of creative web designers and developers by offering:
- Dedicated Working Space
- Workshops and Courses
- Speaker Series
- Event and Conference Space
Designing tech for one of the world’s largest tech companiesI worked as a part of a special team within Oracle’s Marketing department on thinking above their technology and beyond their competition. We worked on designing and developing web, mobile and social experiences throughout Oracle.
Over the course of two years, we worked on a plethora of interactive iniatives including:
- iOS Development for iPhone/iPad
- Desktop Applications for Mac/PC
- HTML5 Mobile Web Prototypes
- Back-end and API Integration
Educator and mentorOver the past half-decade, I lead web and interactive tracks with Boston University, MICA and now at General Assembly. I teach on a variety of subjects focused on fundamental design principles catered for interactive media/publishing and business.
In addition to teaching at more established institutions, I also speak formally on a diversity of topics:
- User-Experience Design
- Designing for Mobile
- Business Principles for Designers
- Designing Design Teams
