Tom Devries

Business & Design Executive | Turn Difference Into Dollars | Strategy • Product • Brand • Experiences • Systems

Role
Founder & President at Okavango
Location
Grand Rapids, MI, US
LinkedIn followers
500 followers
General Business & ManagementView LinkedIn profile

About Tom Devries

I\'ve spent 20 years helping organizations figure out what makes them different and then…

Experience

  1. Founder & President

    Okavango

    Apr 2023 — Present · US

    After years of helping organizations design products and experiences that connect at ThoughtFull (see below), the world is changing — and so are we. Every business is drowning competition. Standing out is no longer optional, it\'s survival. Every business believes they\'re unique, but the world either can\'t tell or doesn\'t care. We help bold leaders save their businesses from sameness so they become unmistakable, irresistible, and impossible to ignore.We design and deploy strategies, products, brands, experiences, and systems grounded in each organization’s unique identity and purpose. Growth can come from any one of these, but the more dimensions of a business we align to express its true points of difference, the greater the impact we deliver.This model works well with global enterprises but olso thrives with small and mid-sized businesses, where alignment comes faster, politics are muted, and complexity is lower. Whenever possible, we tie our success directly to results through pay-for-performance partnerships.At its core, this work is about creating clarity of identity and expressing it consistently across everything a business does so its difference is obvious, compelling, and highly profitable.The result is growth that is practical, measurable, and meaningful, built on truth, clarity, and courage.

Education

  • Institute of Design (ID)

    Master of Design Methods

    2009 — 2010

  • Michigan State University

    B.A. Marketing / Human Resource Management

    1996 — 2000

Skills

  • Design Research
  • Public Speaking
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Industrial Design
  • Strategy
  • Product Innovation
  • Ethnography
  • Sustainable Design
  • Market Research
  • Idea Generation
  • Experience Design
  • Iterative Design
  • User Interface Design
  • Workshop Facilitation
  • User Experience
  • Concept Generation
  • User Interface
  • Conceptual Modeling
  • Research
  • Service Design
  • User-Centered Design
  • Start-Ups
  • Leadership
  • Problem Framing
  • Concept Development
  • Design Thinking
  • User Profiling
  • Human Centered Design
  • Strategic Planning
  • Design Planning
  • Interaction Design
  • Product Design
  • Brand Development
  • Executive Facilitation
  • Product Development
  • Usability Testing

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Tom Devries — Founder & President at Okavango in Grand Rapids, MI, US | Unifers