Cody Morrow

Product design lead · Chicago

I lead the design of complex systems that people can understand, trust, and use.

Nine years across education, healthcare, and financial technology — 0→1 platforms, enterprise workflows, and measurement systems, from ambiguity through launch.

View selected work

How I lead

Selected work

Three flagships

Three cases, three kinds of proof: a 0→1 platform, a measurement practice, and a regulated cross-team system. Each one names what I owned.

In beta · select partners

CS-01

CourseBook

Minerva

2024

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0→1 platform

CourseBook: one platform, not two

I changed the org’s plan from merging two legacy tools to a greenfield platform, then designed all of it: build, teach, grade, one page model.

−20%

Curriculum dev time · beta partners

Read the case

▸

CS-04

Measuring Design Impact

Recurly

2017–19

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Team practice

Design impact, measured

Recurly’s first repeatable usability benchmark: six revenue tasks, one script, every release. The practice outlived me.

49→100%

Cancel-sub task success · runs 1→2 of six

In the index

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CS-04

Measuring Design Impact

Recurly

2017–19

—

Team practice

Design impact, measured

Recurly’s first repeatable usability benchmark: six revenue tasks, one script, every release. The practice outlived me.

49→100%

Cancel-sub task success · runs 1→2 of six

In the index

▸

CS-02

AI Tools

Minerva

2024

—

Strategy · AI · Pedagogy

AI Tools

I led Minerva’s end-to-end AI exploration for CourseBook: a stakeholder workshop, five AI principles, four prototyped concepts, three shipped to a limited partner pilot.

+40%

Grading efficiency in Minerva’s internal AI pilot

Read the case

▸

CS-02

AI Tools

Minerva

2024

—

Strategy · AI · Pedagogy

AI Tools

I led Minerva’s end-to-end AI exploration for CourseBook: a stakeholder workshop, five AI principles, four prototyped concepts, three shipped to a limited partner pilot.

+40%

Grading efficiency in Minerva’s internal AI pilot

Read the case

▸

Impact

The receipts

The short version of how I operate, and the numbers it produced. Each behavior links to the case that proves it; every figure carries its scope and source.

LDR-01

How I lead

L-01

Set product direction

Changed CourseBook from a legacy-integration plan to a greenfield platform by prototyping the new model with engineering. The pitch became the roadmap.

CS-01

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L-01

Set product direction

Changed CourseBook from a legacy-integration plan to a greenfield platform by prototyping the new model with engineering. The pitch became the roadmap.

CS-01

▸

L-02

Create operating systems

Established Recurly’s first repeatable usability benchmark. Design quality became measurable across releases, and stayed that way after I left.

CS-04

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L-02

Create operating systems

Established Recurly’s first repeatable usability benchmark. Design quality became measurable across releases, and stayed that way after I left.

CS-04

▸

L-03

Align complex organizations

At Verily, worked across the CTMS, Enterprise, and Platform teams on clinical-research systems, mapping overlap and coordinating convergence.

L-03

Align complex organizations

At Verily, worked across the CTMS, Enterprise, and Platform teams on clinical-research systems, mapping overlap and coordinating convergence.

L-04

Grow design capacity

Managed and mentored designers at Minerva — two years leading design, managing a designer and three interns — and built the design system that sped front-end work 40% (internal estimate). The teams run research and critique without me.

L-04

Grow design capacity

LDG-02

Sourced results — scope attached

Curriculum dev time

−20%

Beta partners completed curriculum-development tasks 20% faster · CourseBook · Minerva · 2024

Manual reporting labor replaced

400+ hrs/yr

5 hrs × 2 reports × 2 terms × 20+ partners · Engagement dashboard · Minerva

Benchmark task success

49→100%

Cancel-subscription task success, runs 1→2 of a six-task benchmark · Recurly

Grading efficiency · AI

+40%

Grading efficiency in Minerva’s internal AI pilot · CourseBook AI tools

Full evidence index

→

LDG-02

Sourced results — scope attached

Curriculum dev time

−20%

Beta partners completed curriculum-development tasks 20% faster · CourseBook · Minerva · 2024

Manual reporting labor replaced

400+ hrs/yr

5 hrs × 2 reports × 2 terms × 20+ partners · Engagement dashboard · Minerva

Benchmark task success

49→100%

Cancel-subscription task success, runs 1→2 of a six-task benchmark · Recurly

Grading efficiency · AI

+40%

Grading efficiency in Minerva’s internal AI pilot · CourseBook AI tools

Full evidence index

→

On the record

Cody was an inspirational manager/mentor… He knows how to make a design team go forward.

Cyrus Chuang

Lead Product Designer · reported to Cody at Minerva

Cody was an inspirational manager/mentor… He knows how to make a design team go forward.

Cyrus Chuang

Lead Product Designer · reported to Cody at Minerva

Insightful and practical at the same time and that’s very rare. That’s a super power.

Daniela Steinsapir

Sr. UX Manager · Verily

Insightful and practical at the same time and that’s very rare. That’s a super power.

Daniela Steinsapir

Sr. UX Manager · Verily

Cody is a machine that converts ambiguity and chaos into clarity and order.

Garret Bassett

Product Manager · Minerva Project

Cody is a machine that converts ambiguity and chaos into clarity and order.

Garret Bassett

Product Manager · Minerva Project

About

How I got here

I began in nuclear engineering, moved through business analysis and QA, and found product design in the recurring question behind all three: why is this system harder than it needs to be? Since 2016 I’ve led work across billing, education, and clinical research.

These days I’m at TransUnion in Chicago, designing consumer-credit systems that operate at global scale — same question, bigger rooms. The rest is the gym, the lake, and the two field assistants pictured here: my partner and Elwood, who handled morale.