James Granata
Digital Product Manager with a background in development and design
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
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Centene Corporation
Product Management, User Experience Design and Research, Etc.
Centene Corporation
Centene Corporation, a Fortune 25 company, is a leading multi-national healthcare enterprise that provides services to government-sponsored and commercial healthcare programs. Centene offers affordable and high-quality products to nearly 1 in 15 individuals across the United States. As a Senior Product Manager at Centene, James leads teams through discovery, design, execution, and the enhancement of digital products to deliver on the company's software product strategy.
- Role: Senior Product Manager - Digital Product Engineering
WeWork x Flatiron School
Product Management, User Experience Design and Research, Operations, Etc.
WeWork x Flatiron School
As Product Manager, Technology - Engineering at WeWork's Flatiron School, James had a hand in all aspects of digital product development and operations to support high priority lines of business. James contributed to the product development of Learn, Flatiron School’s learning platform, and its ecosystem of products that made it possible for students to learn new skills and launch careers in tech. James partnered with teams throughout the company – including education, sales, marketing, and career services – to define and refine the product vision and build new products. With a focus on execution, James prioritized feature development and inspired a rapid development process.
- Role: Product Manager, Technology - Engineering
StudioLabs
Product Management, Project Management, User Experience Design and Research, Etc.
StudioLabs
Responsible for collaborating with clients to gather requirements for their digital products, turning those requirements into functional specs for our development team, working with engineers throughout the development lifecycle to ensure a smooth delivery, and managing the deployment of the products into their respective production environments. Once a product was launched, James managed the product roadmap deliverables as well as any required maintenance. Clients included Estee Lauder, Mercer Innovation Hub, MouthWatch, Crunch Fitness, BHS Foodservice Solutions, and more.
- Role: Senior Technical Producer
Greatist
Product Management, User Experience Design and Research, Front End Development, Etc.
Greatist
Responsible for developing the product roadmap and working with internal teams and external users to identify opportunities, define requirements, prioritize tasks, QA releases, and deliver core products that met or exceeded market expectations. James planned and implemented features and A/B tests that reached up to 13MM users each month, managed the migration of over 1MM users between Email Service Providers (ESPs), and launched the initial iteration of an online support group product to assess product/market fit.
- Role: Associate Product Manager
Collection: ScrollMotion
Front End Development, User Experience Design and Research, Etc.
Collection: ScrollMotion
James was Sr. Front End Developer / Team Lead at Scrollmotion, and also assisted the Product Design team with various User Experience tasks (wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, etc).
- Role: Sr. Front End Developer
Collection: Not Some Kid
Branding, Web Design and Development, User Experience Design, Etc.
Collection: Not Some Kid
As co-founder and designer for the popular music and entertainment website NotSomeKid.com, James was responsible for web and graphic design, daily site updates, marketing, artist relations, and event management. At its peak, Not Some Kid was reaching over 180,000 viewers annually with its daily music updates, selling branded merchandise, hosting music events across the country, and making waves in the music blogging community.
- Role: Co-Founder, Designer, Content Creator
Series: Altered Reality
Design, Photography, Manipulation
Series: Altered Reality
Altered Reality is a series of manipulated composite photographs -- all shot and edited by James -- that gives new life to everyday subjects. For example, the "cliff" in the image above is really the underside of the corner of a weathered roof and the person "on edge" was shot in a studio. Click through the series to see if you can tell what you're really looking at!
- Role: Art Director, Designer, Photographer
MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team
Website Graphics
MIT SEVT Website Banner
Website graphic design for the Solar Electric Vehicle Team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, competitors in the World Solar Challenge and American Solar Challenge.
- Role: Art Director, Designer
It's Alive Mobile App
In-App Graphic Design, Web Design, User Experience Design
It's Alive Mobile App
The It's Alive App was a freelance project completed for Quarter Mile Technologies, LLC. The mobile app is a utility that monitors the status of computers and servers and sends push notifications to alert when a connection failure occurred. For the release of this app, James created the official website and the in-app graphics.
- Role: Web Designer, Mobile App Designer, Graphic Designer, Illustrator
Diggy Simmons Flash Game
Conceptualization, Wireframing, User Experience Design
Diggy Simmons: Copy, Paste (The Game)
While working at Atlantic Records, James came up with the concept for, and provided early-stage designs of, the Flash-based trivia game that was launched on Diggy Simmons' website along with the release of his hit single, "Copy, Paste".
- Role: Ideator and User Experience Designer
Vero Water
Website Graphic Design
Vero Water Splash Page
Vero's mission is to provide great tasting water, with a minimal carbon footprint. James designed a website splash page and Facebook landing page to coinside with Vero's early stage marketing campaigns.
- Role: Art Director, Graphic Design
Beats™ Headphones Packaging
Packaging Design
Seasonal Packaging for Headphones
For the holiday season, James designed, printed, and crafted the above packaging. The lyrics on the packaging were specifically chosen to match the theme, and the packaging fit perfectly around the original Beats™ Solo HD headphones box. The packaging was used to present the headphones as a gift.
- Role: Concept Creation, Typography, Design, Illustration
Branding with Custom Type
Page Layout, Design
Branding with Custom Type Pamphlet
The intention of this project was to attend a presentation by a well-known designer, and then design a pamphlet in his style that summarizes the topic he presented about. In this case, the presentation attended was by Steve Matteson and the topic was about how to use typefaces to convey a brand's voice, consistency, and integrity.
- Role: Page Layout, Writing, Design
Electric Razor Illustration
Electric Razor Illustration
The goal of this project was to take an everyday item and illustrate it in black and white, focusing on the form, shadows, and highlights of the object. This eventually ended up on a promotional flier for a local barber shop.
- Role: Illustration
Lil Wayne "Mr. Carter" Typographic Art
Shirt Design, Typography
Lil Wayne "Mr. Carter" Typographic Design
James created this typographic design following the release of Lil Wayne's album. The design was printed and sold on a limited number of shirts.
- Role: Concept Creation, Design, Illustration, Typography
Blu - No York!
Album Cover
No York! Album Cover
Inspired by Blu's 2011 album, No York!, James set out to re-design the album cover to match the raw and gritty vibes that the music exuded. The goal was to have the design be an ambigram, representing the NYC skyline no matter which angle it was viewed from.
- Role: Concept Creation, Photography, Design, Illustration
Rundown
James is a Senior Product Manager with 10+ years of experience building, enhancing, and maintaining digital products for web and mobile platforms in remote, hybrid, and in-person environments. Well-versed in visual and digital media, James was Sr. Front End Developer / Team Lead at Scrollmotion for 4+ years prior to transitioning to roles in product management at WeWork x Flatiron School and Centene Corporation.
As Senior Product Manager at Centene Corporation, James is responsible for bridging the gap between humans, computers, and digital products to drive forward the digital product development roadmap. Using a mix of process-driven product ownership methodologies and human-focused stakeholder management approaches, James leads the delivery of digital products within a diversified, multi-national organization focused on transforming the health of our communities, one person at a time.
Previously, as Product Manager at WeWork's Flatiron School, James managed the development of digital products that enabled students to learn the skills needed to launch careers in tech.
Building Blocks
James graduated with honors from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) with a BFA in Visual Media and an Entrepreneurship minor. He joined the Front End Development team at ScrollMotion in 2012, where he developed mobile enterprise solutions for companies including Apple, Campbell's, Mercer, GE, Hallmark, and Disney. It was there that his development role exposed him to product management and sparked his interest in pursuing a career as a technical product management professional.
James' experiences in Product Management have involved developing product roadmaps, working with internal teams and external users to identify opportunities, defining product requirements, prioritizing design and development tasks, QA testing releases, and launching core company products. He has successfully led the end-to-end product development of digital products across many industries, including consumer healthcare websites and mobile apps, B2B ecommerce websites, a provider-facing Teledentistry platform built to facilitate the delivery of dental care, a user-facing fitness website for streaming workout videos, sales and presentation software, and more.
James has also held positions at Atlantic Records and Louise Blouin Media, provided freelance design and photography services since high school, and co-founded Not Some Kid – a music website for which he was designer, developer, event planner, and writer. Find out more on his LinkedIn page or feel free to contact James for a copy of his résumé.
Icebreaker
With the business part out of the way, you're probably wondering: Who really is James Granata (reference)? James is a creative and enthusiastic person whose interests – other than the obvious design, development, and digital media passions – span a breadth of topics, from fishing and boating to music, cooking, and athletics (ie track, basketball, soccer, and all around health & wellness).
Call to Action
James is always open to hearing about exciting opportunities, whether in-person or remote. Please don't hesitate to reach out about freelance work, side project collaboration, available positions, or other topics.
- Location: New York
- Email: [email protected]
- Résumé: Please contact me for a PDF copy of my résumé