MARK STRAYER

I specialize in leveraging emerging technologies to drive business innovation. During my time with Sam's Club's Innovation Foresight R&D, I built and led teams to develop cutting-edge retail technologies, including AI and XR. With a track record of creating patented solutions and strategic partnerships, I thrive at the intersection of technology, design, and business. I’m passionate about solving complex problems and navigating disruptive technologies to help companies develop future-proof strategies and solutions that meet evolving business needs.

• Strategic vision: I develop long-term product strategies that relentlessly focus on solving customer pain points and addressing market needs.

• Iterative execution: I ensure continuous progress in product planning and execution, adapting to challenges with hands-on problem-solving.

• Data-driven decisions: I leverage data and feedback to refine strategies and solve emerging issues to ensure optimal product-market fit.

• Cross-functional leadership: I collaborate with engineering, operations, marketing, and sales teams to troubleshoot bottlenecks and drive seamless execution.

• Innovation mindset: I stay ahead of market trends and competitors, unrelentingly pursuing new solutions to keep products relevant and competitive.

• Diverse experience: I have worked with companies ranging from small startups to Fortune 1 companies, adapting strategies to meet each business's unique challenges and scale.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Designed and implemented the innovation team structure, governance, and culture for Sam’s Club (See Sam’s Club experience)

  • Honored for innovation at the 69th Walmart Shareholder Event. (See Sam’s Club experience)

  • Won the second internal innovation contest award for Sam’s Club showcasing a new retail experience that was presented to global leadership and fast tracked for implementation (patent). See Sam’s Club experience for press info

  • Won an internal innovation contest award for Sam’s Club showcasing voice interaction with the iOS member experience app. (See Sam’s Club experience)

  • Patented technology for association of assets utilizing accelerometers and Bluetooth. The patent that contains my invention is here (See Modustri experience)

  • Patent for inventory transportation monitoring. The patent that contains my invention is here (See Modustri experience)

  • Forge named App Store Editors' Choice and named to the “Best of 2015” (See Adonit experience)


RECOMMENDATIONS

““Mark is one of the most dynamic innovators I have worked with. I met him early in my tenure as the Chief Product Officer at Sam’s Club, and I knew immediately that he would thrive in wrestling with unsolved problems. I engaged with him as a key partner in Network 32, our team that was challenged with innovating 5+ years out through rapid testing and experimentation. He helped drive a steady stream of amazing ideas and experimental code/hardware that we’ll benefit from for years to come. He’s a top notch strategist, engineer, and problem solver. He wasn’t afraid to challenge me and I always benefitted from his pushing. I hope our paths cross again very soon!””
— Tim Simmons: SVP, Chief Product Officer, Sam's Club

  • “Mark is a creative thinker who is not shy in challenging the status quo. This enabled him to create a new product which we successfully launched. “

  • “Mark is an explorer, innovator, and storyteller. His ability to fuse the complexities of emerging technology with the required simplicity of commercialized solutions and share the value of that work with all levels of an organization are best-in-class. Specifically, Mark’s work as part of Network 32, where he and his team looked 5+ years out into potentially groundbreaking innovation, gave a view of what’s to come and how applications of new technology will shape the business. He’s a highly skilled strategist, developer, and leader and I’m excited to watch him continue to unlock innovation for years to come.”

  • I have had the pleasure of working closely with Mark in the Innovations, R&D and experimental space on a variety of member and associate facing usecases in Augmented and Virtual space. Along with his fresh ideas and nuanced approach, he has certainly made an impact on how we approach experimentation and feasibility studies on future ground breaking innovations that could impact how we do business and differentiate from our competition. His openness on ideas, close collaboration with cross-functional business and tech teams and willingness to go an extra mile sets him apart.

  • Mark's skill in software development is just one of the things that make him such a strong senior member of his teams. He's a quick thinker, a talented problem-solver, and a skilled developer, all rolled into one. Mark is also a sometimes designer / sometimes marketer with an innate understanding for where and how to evolve products to bring them to market. I can't recommend Mark highly enough. He's an amazing developer, an amazing consultant, and a good man.

  • Mark was a key contributor to our team. He has a no-nonsense way of challenging an approach, collaborating on options, and then focusing effort to deliver. He listens, considers the situation, provides meaningful feedback, and seeks understanding if the value proposition isn't evident. Mark brings market sense to the world of makers, and takes pride in building products that customers will love.

  • As a designer, Mark is the type of developer I love working with. Inquisitive and always open to new challenges, Mark approaches ideas holistically and can quickly frame potential solutions and risks. When confronted with the unknown, he is able to plot a course forward through prototyping and experimentation, often uncovering opportunities that would have otherwise not been considered.

SPEAKING

(Case Study) Show them what it feels like. How your approach to development changes with XR.

EXPERIENCE

Walmart Global Tech

Innovation Foresight R&D Leader, Network32 @ Sam’s Club

I established and expanded a new innovation team, developing it from a concept to a partnership between product, operations, merchandising, legal, finance, and engineering teams. This team is tasked with identifying technologies and disruptors that will impact the retail industry over the next 1-3 years. To form this team, I conducted research on business impacts and presented my findings to the CEO of Sam’s. Once operational, I met quarterly with the CEO, CTO, and Chief Product Officer to discuss innovation organization design and guidance on emerging technologies.

As the founder of this initiative, I was responsible for conducting research and analyzing business needs. I designed and led a team to develop and test unique applications of these technologies, supporting leadership in making strategic decisions about emerging technology. Utilizing my skills in understanding technologies and storytelling, I have successfully guided senior leadership in making well-informed decisions about the latest developments, with a keen understanding of their business impacts.

Key projects I have led include:

  • Designed and implemented the innovation team structure, governance, and culture

  • Researched and created the Sam's Club strategy around Metaverse and Extended Reality

  • Creation of extended reality (XR) prototypes for in-store (phone based) and at home (phone and headset based) shopping.

  • Developed prototyping strategy for parallel UX and engineering research

  • Initial generative AI strategy and early use cases for generative AI to hyper-personalize the shopping experience

  • Ongoing research using generative AI to integrate your personal space into XR

  • Ongoing research about generative AI using edge and mobile compute

  • Partnership with Creator Burger for the development of burger robot in Sam’s

  • Partnership with the McMillon Innovation Studio at the University of Arkansas

  • Represent Sam's Innovation at internal and external public speaking events

Skills

  • Proactive Design Thinking

  • Technology Leadership

  • Product Leadership

  • Innovation Foresight

  • Organizational Design

Honored for innovation at Walmart Shareholders Event 2022:

Kath McLay, CEO of Sam’s Club highlights our innovation idea that was rolled out chain wide the previous year.

The host of the event has a little fun with our team

Staff Software Engineer @ Sam’s Club

Worked on the core iOS app for Sam's Club, leading the overhaul of checkout and cart services integration to new APIs and implementing a new UI design.

Facilitated the merger of the Scan and Go app code base into the core iOS app. This involved unifying architectures, redesigning navigation, and integrating sensor usage. Delivered the merged app on a tight holiday timeline, maintaining a 99.97% crash-free rate and a 4.8-star average app store rating.

Innovated with the Scan and Go team to enable seamless cart additions and checkout without unpacking, including support for alcohol purchases.

On the e-commerce team, optimized user experience performance and set new user interaction standards in collaboration with the UX team.

Demonstrated innovation leadership by winning an internal challenge for best use of limited resources. Developed a voice interaction concept using SiriKit in iOS13, enhancing shopping effectiveness.

Secured another innovation award for best business impact with the "Scan and Ship" concept, revolutionizing the retail experience. Presented to top leadership, leading to fast-track implementation and recognition from the global CEO of Walmart. Here are some links to press on the pilot for this innovation.

Skills

  • Product Design

  • App architecture

  • Team Leadership

OST

Responsible for architecting and implementing the Bluetooth portion of a solution for the RV industry. This project used a custom built CAN->BTLE bridge that enabled the application written in Cordova running on iOS or Android to connect and control the CAN bus enabled devices in an RV. I worked hand in hand with the firm responsible for the custom hardware to create a solution that supported multiple simultaneous phone connections. This position required understanding of the different workflows and quirks of the Bluetooth stack on various versions of iOS and Android.

My research project used the HoloLens and augmented reality in a day to day healthcare setting for nursing.

Modustri

Created best in class applications for the heavy machinery industry and retail.  I created everything from app architecture to design and implementation of the UI/UX.  The product is an IoT offering that utilizes sensor arrays connected via Bluetooth and cellular to a backend infrastructure hosted on AWS.  

I was responsible for managing internal and external resources from cross-functional teams to deliver cutting edge solutions for our Fortune 50 customers on-time and under budget.  Our process focused on voice of customer research to ensure the products we created solved the real world problems that our customers faced every day.

This position required quick learning and application of complex technology to create a proof of concept prototypes that can be used to prove out the business case and be presented to stakeholders at Fortune 50 companies.  These prototypes are iterated on and developed into a full product offering.

While at Modustri I invented a patented technology for association of assets utilizing accelerometers. Link to the patent that contains my invention is here.

Omnigon

Worked on a client project for a major sports franchise.  The app has a massive audience of tens of millions.  Written entirely in Swift.  This position required interfacing with various development and design groups within the organization to ensure a congruent customer experience across platforms.  

Adonit

As the first full-time software hire for Adonit I was responsible for the stylus SDK during the Evernote Script launch. This work included bluetooth hardening as well as palm rejection and offset correction.
    
I architected Adonit's first iPad application called Forge. This app utilizes custom gestures as well as complex animations to create a seamless user experience that promotes creatives getting their ideas down quickly and iterating on those ideas. As the iOS architect on this project I am responsible for designing and helping to implement the foundation of this app as well as the direction of the architecture for further growth.  Forge was named to the "Best of 2015" list by Apple as well as Editors choice at launch.

Other responsibilities include mentoring junior members of the team, promoting code standards and methodologies, and implementing our continuous integration and deployment system.

Evernote Script Launch - SDK

For the Script launch with Evernote, I worked very closely with the Penultimate team to ensure the Script launch was a great success.  This work included re-working the palm-rejection algorithms, hardening the bluetooth code, offset correction, and general information re-architecture.  The Evernote script is the first product of its kind to use Adonit's pixel point technology that presented new technological hurdles such as offset correction.  

To see the design story on the Script, go to Behance.

Forge

Forge is the digital workspace where visual thinking – typically spread across sketchbooks and studio walls – fits onto your screen. Build your ideas, fast and focused, with Forge.

Named App Store Editors' Choice and February 2015 App of the Month.

Named to the "Best of 2015" by Apple.

Forge has been a wonderful challenge to architect and implement.  From storage space conscious and performant file formats to very complex gesture interactions that work seamlessly for the end user, every aspect of this app has been painstakingly developed to be best in class.  The development process included many prototypes to prove out concepts that then were implemented in the shipping code base.  As the architect I was responsible for ensuring the beautiful and challenging design was brought to reality in an effective way.

EDUCATION

B.S. Computer Science