03 / The studio
Independent spirit.
Collective progress.
A small, senior-led practice for people building what comes next.
Patrick
Olivares
Founder & Principal, Product Strategy & Design
Strategy with
a designer’s eye.
I’ve spent my career helping teams understand their customers—and turn that understanding into better products.
My work brings together product strategy, research, design, and marketing. I’ve built enterprise UX practices, led digital product portfolios, advised startups, and developed teams that connect customer needs with business priorities.
That experience includes establishing product design practices at Korn Ferry and Sungard, leading digital experience at PMI, and building design and research capabilities in live commerce at CommentSold and Popshop Live.
Velocity Studio Group is the next expression of that work: a direct, hands-on partnership for founders and teams who need senior perspective and practical progress.
Let’s talk about your next moveAn entrepreneurial thread / Experience from the inside
From an idea
to a venture.
I know the work of building something of your own.
Alongside my work with product organizations, I founded The Ancient Web in 1998. A personal interest in art, archaeology, and history grew into a publishing venture, a community of contributing writers, and an accompanying online store.
I also established an enterprise product design and UX practice within a Philadelphia software startup and, as a principal at E-tech Solutions, participated in its acquisition by Perficient. Those experiences inform how I work with founders: connecting the idea, the customer experience, and the practical work of building a business.
Explore the venture The Ancient Web is no longer live. Its case study documents a past venture.Our point of view / Built on a few good principles
Evidence before assumption.
Start with people. Customer research gives strategy a stronger foundation and makes design decisions easier to defend.
Clarity creates momentum.
A focused roadmap and a shared understanding help teams spend their energy on the work that matters.
Think together. Build together.
Great work crosses disciplines. Product, design, engineering, and marketing work best in the same conversation.
Selected experience / A foundation in practice
Perspective, earned.
Selected milestones from Patrick’s career.
Detailed project accounts live in the work.
CommentSold / Popshop Live
Product design and user research leadership across live commerce platforms.
Project Management Institute
Digital experience leadership spanning research, product management, and enterprise product design.
PubMatic
Defined the product experience as the organization’s first Senior Design Director.
Korn Ferry
Established the first global digital product design practice and helped launch Korn Ferry Digital.
Sungard Availability Services
Built the enterprise UX practice and connected product design with marketing automation.
Perficient
Led the user experience practice and multidisciplinary teams across enterprise client engagements.
Writing & recognition / Ideas, shared
A continuing curiosity.
Selected writing on design, technology, and innovation, alongside published inventions from Patrick’s product work.
Forbes · SungardAS BrandVoice
Articles authored by Patrick as a Brand Contributor for SungardAS’s paid BrandVoice program on Forbes.
- The Big Data Initiative And What The White House Can Learn From Lewis And Clark (opens in a new tab)
Data strategy through the lens of exploration and shared knowledge.
- Was Steve Jobs Really Wrong About Television? (opens in a new tab)
How automotive interfaces could become a new frontier for user experience.
- Crowdsourcing Our History: How The Wikipedia Generation Will Change The World (opens in a new tab)
How participatory publishing changes the way knowledge and history are created.
- What Apple Versus Samsung Means For The Future Of Innovation (opens in a new tab)
The relationship between interface conventions, intellectual property, and innovation.
Published patent applications
Named co-inventor on two published U.S. patent applications from work at Sungard Availability Services.
- Incident playbook generated in real time from disaster recovery plan extractions (opens in a new tab)US 2015/0142508 A1
A system for assembling essential information from multiple recovery plans into incident-specific response playbooks.
- Plan visualization (opens in a new tab)US 2016/0247246 A1
A visual approach to coordinating recovery procedures, task assignments, communications, and response status.
Patrick’s advisory experience also includes the Rutgers University Big Data certification program and NextDocs’ senior advisory board. His original portfolio documents product recognition at Sungard, including a Product of the Year award and Gartner Magic Quadrant leadership placement. Explore the Sungard work
Good work starts with a conversation.
Let’s buildsomething useful.
Bring your idea, your challenge,
or your next big question.