# Philipp Sackl-O’Neill

> I turn complex, high-stakes problems into products people understand and trust. I work across design, research, product, and go-to-market to find the solutions others miss.

Website: https://cv.philipp.so
Email: hi@philipp.so

## At a glance

- 18 years of experience
- 900M+ people using products I designed
- 3 companies founded
- 7000+ guests at UX events I’ve curated

## Principles

Over the years, a few principles have shaped how I work, whatever my title happened to be at the time.

### Think End-to-End

Solving meaningful problems starts with seeing the big picture. Working across disciplines has taught me to look at every part of a product from the user’s perspective, and to go wherever the solution is, even if that means leaving my formal job description behind.

### Build Bridges

Great products come from people who work well together. I bring the right people to the table, help them find common ground, and build the alliances that get things shipped. In 18 years, I have done this in teams of every size, from a small studio to a design team spread across four continents.

### Don’t Wait

There is a difference between knowing the next step and taking it. When in doubt, I choose action. Progress creates clarity, and I would rather learn from a step forward than from standing still. It is why I founded a design studio straight after my first job, and a UX conference at a time when Europe hardly had any.

## Curriculum Vitæ

I have designed for nearly a billion people at Mozilla, for a handful of boardrooms at Squalify, and for everything in between.

### Principal, Product & Design, Squalify (2022 – Present)

*Making cyber risk understandable for the people who have to act on it.*

Roles held:

- Principal GTM & Customer Experience (2024 – Present)
- Head of Product (interim) (2024 – 2026)
- Design Lead (external) (2022 – 2024)

Squalify allows enterprises to quantify cyber risk in financial terms, using a model that its parent company Munich Re (one of the world’s largest cyber reinsurers) has long used in insurance pricing. I joined as an external UX and product consultant to turn this internal capability into a product for the first time. When Squalify was spun out into its own entity, my role expanded to building the brand, shaping the team, and developing the initial go-to-market plan.

I designed the first version of the product myself. The most important (and at the time most controversial) decision was to move away from a wizard-style interface where users had to enter all of their data step by step. In most companies, the information needed for a risk assessment is spread across different departments and only becomes available over time. So I designed the product to let users add data whenever they had it. The model would then produce results right away, filling the gaps with statistically likely values and being open about where it did so. This matched the reality of our customers much better than the wizard ever could.

After joining as an employee in 2024, I continued to drive the evolution of product, positioning, and go-to-market together with the team. We moved the product from one-off quantification projects to a true SaaS offering. The positioning shifted to focus on quantifying risk for corporate groups with multiple entities, an area where the product had a unique advantage, and the go-to-market approach moved from a partner-centric model to one where we approached large corporations directly.

Achievements:

- **Zero-to-one productization** of Munich Re’s cyber risk quantification model
- Designed the first version of the product, allowing users to **add data as it became available** and see results early
- Reached **product-market fit** by positioning Squalify as cyber risk quantification for the boardroom, with a focus on companies with complex group structures
- Created the brand that took Squalify **out of stealth and into the market**
- Led **AI adoption efforts** across the product and GTM teams

### Independent App Developer, Independent (2021 – Present)

*Building the apps I always wanted to have.*

Alongside my other work, I design, build, and ship my own apps, handling product, design, development, and marketing myself. It keeps my craft sharp and reminds me what it’s like to be the one who has to make every decision.

I built and released two apps: [DoRepeat](https://dorepeat.app), an iOS app for managing repeating checklists, and [Tempy](https://tempy.now), a streamlined quick notes app for macOS.

Achievements:

- Designed, built, and shipped DoRepeat and Tempy as a solo developer, owning every part of the product from concept to App Store release
- DoRepeat holds a 4.5-star rating on the App Store, with users regularly emailing to share how it fits into their daily routines and to suggest new features

### Founder & Co-CEO, PUSH UX (2012 – Present)

*Organizing one of the biggest UX events in Europe. Going strong for 14+ years.*

PUSH Conference was born out of a desire to bring user experience designers into a room with creative technologists, researchers, and business professionals.

At the time, there were hardly any UX conferences in Europe and the ones that did exist focused on a very narrow domain like web design. We wanted to break up those silos and show people how much there is to learn from adjacent fields.

Since then, PUSH Conference has become a staple event for the design and UX community in Europe. Based on the feedback from our guests, we continuously evolved the program to include new formats like Lightning Talks or the Lean Coffee Discussion.

Achievements:

- 13 sold out conferences with a total of **more than 7000 guests**
- Gave up-and-coming talent an audience through our exhibition and lightning talk platforms
- According to our guests, being at PUSH Conference feels **like being with family**. I’m proud of having contributed to building such a safe and open environment

### Mentor & Coach, Product Masterclass (2021 – 2025)

*Mentoring product managers and helping organizations transition from project to product-focused work.*

Product Masterclass is an 8-week program that helps product managers and product leaders sharpen their craft. This included both public cohorts, open to product people from different companies, and in-house cohorts run for a single company’s team.

As one of four coaches, I worked with participants on product discovery, rapid prototyping, and product leadership. A frequent theme was the shift from a project-centric to a product-centric model.

Achievements:

- Mentored more than 100 product managers across 15 cohorts
- Helped participants grow in product discovery, rapid prototyping, and product leadership
- Advised organizations in their move from a project-centric model to a product-centric one

### Director User Experience, Freeletics (2019 – 2021)

*Scaling design, research, and content strategy to help millions of athletes reach their goals.*

I joined Freeletics, the company behind Europe’s leading fitness app, as Director of User Experience, leading design, research, and content strategy. I had been a user myself since 2013 (my first workout took almost 40 minutes, and I had to replace several exercises). Freeletics had built a strong position with what we called “hardcore athletes.” The challenge was to appeal to a broader, more casual audience without losing that core group.

To get there, we needed a better understanding of what motivates people. I had our research team go deep on self-determination theory (the idea that motivation comes from competence, autonomy, and relatedness) as the foundation for how Freeletics delivers value. The results shaped decisions in product, UX, marketing, and strategy alike.

I brought all of this together in a north star vision, which I presented at our annual company offsite. Its core idea was that people don’t buy a fitness app, they buy better versions of themselves. So instead of structuring the product around our departments (training, nutrition, audio), we structured it around the goals and needs of our users, with self-determination theory as the backbone of the app. The point was not to spec out exactly what we would build, but to vividly show us our direction.

This put Freeletics in a strong position to grow through the pandemic-driven surge in at-home fitness demand, and to close a Series B funding round.

Achievements:

- Contributed to more than **2x YoY growth**
- Developed and presented the **north star vision** for the next chapter of Freeletics
- Made user research strategic by grounding product, marketing, and strategy in **self-determination theory**
- Championed a visual refresh across product and marketing to **appeal to a broader market**
- Mentored three new managers

### Head of Design, Firefox, Mozilla (2013 – 2019)

*Bringing a fast, safe, and private web experience to hundreds of millions of Firefox users.*

Roles held:

- Head of Design, Firefox Products & Services (2018 – 2019)
- Senior Manager, Firefox Product Design (2016 – 2018)
- Lead Designer & Design Manager, Firefox (2014 – 2016)
- Senior Interaction Designer (2013 – 2014)

As Head of Design, I led the team that designed and delivered the products and services under the Firefox brand. Our work spanned all form factors from phones to desktops and from TVs to voice assistants, with a team spread across Europe, North America, Taiwan, and (surprisingly) Vanuatu.

I originally joined Mozilla as a Senior Interaction Designer in 2013 and moved into a leadership role after less than a year. Over the following years, I helped double the size of the UX team and worked with my peers in product management and the leadership team to reframe business problems as design problems.

Much of our work was about privacy and security (from Tracking Protection to Firefox Accounts and Lockwise). Features like these come with a huge number of edge cases. If you design for each of them individually, you end up with a product that nobody understands. The work was a constant exercise in zooming in on the details and back out again, until we found an experience that was both understandable and secure.

Achievements:

- Among many other things, my team shipped **Firefox Quantum**, the rewrite and redesign that put Firefox back on the map in 2017
- Leveled up the **user research** capabilities of designers by creating a mentorship program together with our research team
- Enabled my team to **ship and scale** products like Firefox for iOS, Firefox Accounts, and Firefox Monitor
- Personally led the design of flagship features like **Tracking Protection** and **the redesigned search experience**

### Lecturer, HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd (2009 – 2018)

*Learning by teaching at one of Germany’s top design schools.*

I always found teaching to be the most elaborate form of learning. That’s why I jumped at the chance when one of Germany’s top design schools asked me to lead courses on design fundamentals. My curriculum soon evolved into including interaction design and generative design in addition to the fundamentals, before turning into a workshop series about design processes and methods.

Not only did I learn a lot through my time in academia, seeing my former students create such great work now makes me incredibly proud to have contributed to their success.

### Founder, UX Designer & Studio Lead, envis precisely (2009 – 2013)

*Founding a studio where design transcends labels.*

In 2009, I founded the multidisciplinary design studio envis precisely together with two like-minded friends. We helped clients ranging from small companies like the ebook startup Skoobe to large enterprises like BMW in improving their interactive customer experience. Our work included apps, web and desktop applications as well as embedded systems and interactive exhibits.

Founding a studio was also an intensive course in business, customer development, and leadership at the same time. This is where I gained first experience in leading creatives when managing our team of up to eight designers and where I learned how to look at design through the lens of business.

Achievements:

- Built a successful, bootstrapped company **from the ground up**
- Shipped experiences **across the entire spectrum of technology**: from apps and websites all the way to embedded applications and interactive installations

### Interaction Designer, BMW (2008 – 2009)

*Pioneering a new era of in-car interaction design for an iconic brand.*

I joined BMW Advanced Design through an internship. At the time, I was the only interaction designer on that team. In fact, the concept of an interaction designer was so foreign to the team that it took almost half a year until people stopped referring to me as “the programmer.”

Within that half year, I invented a layered holographic 3D display system which eventually was shown to the world in the [BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics show car.](https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0039554EN/bmw-vision-efficientdynamics?language=en)

After a year, I moved on from BMW to start my own design studio.

Achievements:

- Invented a holographic multi-layer display system with three patents (Patents [DE102009031123A1](https://patents.google.com/patent/DE102009031123A1), [DE102008037061A1](https://patents.google.com/patent/DE102008037061A1), [DE102008037060A1](https://patents.google.com/patent/DE102008037060A1))
- Introduced UX and interaction design as a discipline at the BMW Advanced Design studio

## Education

- B.A. Information Design (graduated with honors), FH JOANNEUM, Graz (2005 – 2009)
- Communication Design (semester abroad), FH Potsdam (2006 – 2007)

## Certifications

- Management 3.0, Happy Melly One, London (2018)
- Design Leadership Fundamentals, Design Dept., San Francisco (2017)
- Design Leadership, Cooper, San Francisco (2017)

## Contact

What will we create together? Whether you have a hard problem to solve or an idea to explore, I’m looking forward to your message.

Email: hi@philipp.so