Long Version

Paolo is a Director of User Experience at Google where he currently leads two globally-distributed teams and two horizontal efforts within the Google Maps organization (also known as Geo): Geo Auto & Geo Sustainability. Responsible for leading all UX functions and activities that inform the product portfolio’s strategy, design, development, and ongoing evolution; directly managing design managers and designers to enable their growth, well-being, engagement, and effectiveness. Member of each business’ cross-functional staff responsible for day-to-day management and product area leadership. Managing teams located in Los Angeles, Mountain View, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Sydney, Tel Aviv, and Zurich.

Geo Auto is responsible for the built-in Google Maps experience in some leading brands’ latest models that include: Polestar 2, GMC Hummer, Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, Cadillac Lyriq, Renault Mégane, and Volvo XC40 Recharge. In addition to providing the best routing & navigation experience, we also enable sustainable mobility with eco-routing and features for EVs. We are also responsible for the Google Maps projected automotive experience through Android Auto or Apple Carplay, and provide the data and navigation capabilities to power an auto brand’s own in-car experience, with Mercedes-Benz announced as our first partner.

Geo Sustainability is responsible for the portfolio of geospatial product experiences that enable governments, businesses, academia, researchers, and individuals to address the sustainability challenge of climate change. Products include: Google Earth, the premier 3D model of the globe; Earth Engine, Google’s geospatial data and visualization platform; and Environmental Insights Explorer, a data and insights tool for cities to measure and reduce emissions. We also have Sidewalk Labs, with its products for urban innovation: Delve, generative design for real estate teams; Mesa, for efficient commercial building management; and Pebble, enabling municipalities manage mobility operations. We recently added Breezometer to our team, bringing their air quality (powering Apple’s weather app), pollen, and fire alert data and capabilities to our portfolio.

He is acting as UX leader for horizontal cross-functional efforts within Geo: Driving Experiences across all surfaces (in-car + mobile), enabling cross-team coordination for cohesive driving navigation experiences; Electric Vehicle enablement across driver, automotive OEM, developer, and city experiences powered by Google Maps.

Education continues to be a theme throughout his career. He is an instructor within Google’s UX Design Certificate, teaching the final course in its 7-course Professional Certificate offered through Coursera. This online-only course has enabled thousands of people around the world to learn UX design and pursue new careers. He is a member of Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts advisory board, supporting the dean and respective department heads of Architecture, Art, Design, Drama, and Music on strategic planning for this world-class university’s arts college. He was a former adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley where he taught a highly sought after graduate level course on Human-Computer Interaction & User Experience for Managers in the Master of Science in Software Management program. He continues to mentor and sponsor many individuals both within and without Google.

Paolo deeply cares about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging and supports organizations that work on addressing poverty, hunger, education, and entrepreneurship. He is on Google’s Asian Leadership Group and an executive sponsor of the Filipino Googler Network where he works with Googlers around the world on building a more diverse, representative, and inclusive environment for Googlers from all backgrounds and abilities. He is an active board member and advisor to several non-profits addressing entrepreneurship, hunger, poverty, malnutrition, education, and sustainability in the Philippines.

From 2017 through 2021, he led the YouTube Ads UX team whose mission is to power the YouTube ecosystem by keeping it free and engaging for users, responsibly rewarding creators, and connecting businesses to their unique audiences. Every month, billions of people around the world go to YouTube to be entertained, to learn, to discover something new, and to connect with the world – and the vast majority of those people are able to experience YouTube for free, and they aim to keep it that way.

Previously he was Director of Design at Netflix where he led teams of designers and prototypers responsible for the TV devices & website member experience and the cross-platform non-member/acquisition experiences of the world's leading internet TV brand as it went from 60 countries to 190, and 60M members to over 100M worldwide. They designed and launched many improvements to the product user experience including rolling out video previews in the TV experience in 2017, going fully global in 2016, and the full redesign of Netflix.com in 2015.

As Vice President of Advanced User Experience Design at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America from 2013 to 2015, he led the team responsible for discovering, designing, and prototyping the future user experience of the connected and autonomous automobile that's delightful and uniquely Mercedes-Benz. This team lay the foundation for what is now known as MBUX. At Zynga he was Director of Product in the mobile division designing and building their new mobile social gaming network. He was an Executive Producer responsible for driving multiple incubation programs for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business (which included Xbox, Zune, and media businesses) and Windows Phone division. Most of those never saw the light of day after going through the Business/eXperience/Technology gate process except for one; that project defined the core user experience and value prop for the new Xbox One.

He took a break from Microsoft as Director of User Experience at Pelago, a software startup that delivered a geosocial networking experience on the Web and mobile devices called Whrrl; Pelago was acquired by Groupon in April 2011 (this was way after he left in 2007). 

Highlights from his first 8+ years at Microsoft include the Xbox 360 game console as User Experience Manager, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge on the original Xbox as Multiplayer Design Lead, the first Alternate Reality Game called “The Beast” as a Designer, and MechWarrior4: Vengeance on PC as User Interface Design Lead. He once beat the designer of Tetris in a puzzle video game. (True story, Alexey, even if you don't remember it. It was a highlight of my gaming life.) 

He held design positions at Oracle and IBM working on enterprise management, database management, and data visualization software. In addition, he has also pursued a variety of personal and entrepreneurial projects from traditional shoe-making, cooking, and app design & development. 

Before the global pandemic of 2020, he gave keynotes or presentations at the Adobo Design Conference 2019 in Manila, Pause Fest 2019 in Syndey, UXDX 2018 in Dublin, IXDA Oslo, IXDA 2017 in New York, SXSW 2016 in Austin, IDSA15 in Seattle, IXDA's Interaction14 in Amsterdam, IDG's User Experience World 2014 in Seoul, Tsinghua University's International Conference on Interaction Design in Beijing, In-Q-Tel's Technology Focus Day in Washington D.C., Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Brand Manage Camp, International Conference on Computer Human Interaction (SIG CHI), International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC), International Symposium of Arts & Content (ISAC), and Microsoft's Social Computing Symposium. He is listed as an inventor on multiple patents and applications. He continues to be tolerated at social events and family gatherings. 

He also completed the first semester of the Design MBA program at the California College of the Arts in 2012 but, due to his then new role at Mercedes-Benz, suspended his enrollment to concentrate on the new job. He is officially a grad school dropout. He studied art & design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA and spent a semester abroad in Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, PRC studying Chinese language, culture, traditional painting, Tai Chi, and the fine art of traveling by train on a hard wooden bench. Upon graduating college in 1995 he spent a month backpacking through 13 cities in Western Europe with a Eurail pass and $30/day. 

Paolo was born in the Philippines where he competed at the regional and national level in Lego competitions, traveled around SE Asia while living in Bangladesh and Indonesia, and finished off his childhood in Philadelphia where he learned how to eat a real cheesesteak.

He is fluent in English and Tagalog, stumbles along in ever-deteriorating broken Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, and has forgotten what little Bengali and Bahasa he picked up as a kid (except for counting from 1 through 10). He also picked up some conversational Deutsch by working in a German company and traveling to Stuttgart on a regular basis. It has also been said he laughs like a hyena and sneezes like his head exploded.