CONNECTING THE HIDDEN

My name is Milan Kocic. I was born in Belgrade (then Yugoslavia, now Serbia) and moved to US in 1986 when I was 15. I finished High School (IB) in Washington D.C.

Ever since childhood I was interested in Art, Music, Design, Science and Innovation. It probably had something to do with the fact my Father was a Nuclear Engineer and my Mother was an Architect.

During and after High School I had a great draw to Product Design, Fashion Design, Music and general creative endeavors, but the Eastern European parent forces took over and gave me an option to chose between Engineering or Medicine. I ended up in London and graduated with a degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and Economics at King’s College London. After college I moved to NYC and spent a year working in Music Studios as I also played classical piano for over 13 years while growing up.

I then moved to Chicago a year later for a consulting job. Soon after I ended up as a Technical Engineer in a company that would eventually become Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence. In my career at Hexagon I also did 9 years of Commercial Sales, spent couple of years at Zeiss (main competitor of Hexagon) in Product Development and have spent most of my time in last 12 years back at Hexagon building awareness about Design Thinking and UX and leading disruptive innovation and digital transformation programs. All products you see on previous pages are a result of my ideas combined with customer insight and brought to fruition with a diverse team.

Most recently I built MyCare and MyQuality services and in last two years i have been running Sixth Sense Open Innovation Platform which was pitched, built and now being ran by me and a small external team.

In some ways I would say my career brought me a full circle back to the beginning of what I really wanted to do, innovation and design amazing, useful and functional things...

RESUME/CV

SUMMARY

Innovator. Connector of the unseen. Ability to see what others don’t. Amazing ability to empathize with startups and their journey., Informed intuition guides me to focus on innovation that is disruptive and profitable.

· Deeply strategic and creative in my approach to Innovation.

· All my work is always evidence-driven and based on informed intuition. Gifted storyteller.

· System thinker. I always take into consideration a broad view of the effect of innovation not only for the product or service at hand but also at the related ecosystem.

· Highly collaborative. Great at aligning business, engineering, and design.

· Highly adaptable. I treat learning as an ongoing process and am extremely curious to learn about things I do not know...yet.

· Expertise in innovation, startup engagement, user research, prototype development, user experience, technology trends, connecting the dots, product, and service innovation from research to birth (and sometimes, death).

· Skilled in a range of methodologies

· Experience in translating research data into effective and innovative products and services.

· Efficient contributor in a variety of settings, from leading projects, to working autonomously, to collaborating with teams large and small

EXPERIENCE

Hexagon MI | Founder and Head of Sixth Sense Open Innovation Platform, August 2021 – Present

In this role I proposed, built, and launched an Open Innovation Platform for Hexagon MI called Sixth Sense – sixthsense.hexagon.com We are working with startups in Advanced Manufacturing space to help them scale their business via connections to Hexagon and Hexagon customer base. Program is built in 10-week cohort structure, twice a year with a participation of roughly 10-15 startups (Series A). I run a team with help of a few outside agencies to execute the full program. So far we worked with 15 startups after over 200 applications.

Hexagon MI | Director – Business Development & Innovation, Service and Support, North America, Jan 2020 – August 2021

In this role I was tasked with transforming system support & service offerings including software & hardware as well as delivering innovative customer focused commercial strategies for the current and future needs. I was taking all the Customer Design Driven methodologies applied as part of strategic product group (PROXI) to the CX portion of our business with a view of using customer insight to drive innovation and transformation. The initial goal was to double the size of the service (over 5 years) and support business and increase retention and engagement. I put together and rolled out two services, MyCare and MyQuality that increased recurring revenue in service by 65% in one year 2020-21. Currently an additional increase of 50% over 2021 in first two Quarters of 2022.

Hexagon MI | Director – Global Product Strategy and Design Group (PROXI): 9/2017 – August 2021

Managed a Global Experience and Innovation Group charged with delivering engaging experiences and transformative innovation to a $1.5B division of Hexagon AB. My mission as a Design Generalist was to use insights researched from user experiences and behaviors to drive exploration of intuitive, intelligently designed technologies. As a leader of internal strategy and design group, goal was to foster new ways of problem solving that turn insights into actionable concepts that develop across Hexagon business units. Combining deep customer research with design thinking strategies, PROXI identified innovative business opportunities that fueled the growth of HMI product lines and beyond and helps deliver products and services with amazing user experiences. During this time, I was an author of over 15 patents.

Hexagon MI | Business Development Manager for Product Experience and Innovation: 11/2013 – 9/2017

In this position I was responsible for creation of all customer touch points relating to development, use and support a clear focus on product experience (PX) and offerings (initial systems as well as complimentary products and services) which increased account revenue over product life cycle by focusing on enhanced engagement / relationship development. This included directing Hexagon MI presence, including user research, defining product vision based on customer feedback, working closely with global product line management and engineering, to deliver customer-focused products and contribute to the global product experience(s) strategy. I was instrumental in setting up a global program for IIoT implementation within HMI in combination with internal middleware and external partners such as Salesforce, GE Predix, Azure and AWS.

Hexagon MI | Product Manager - Software, Sensors, and User Experience, North America: 10/2011 – 11/2013

Responsible for the day-to-day management of all software and sensor family of products at all stages of the Product Life Cycle. In charge of Total User Experience. Responsible for product planning, product marketing and product innovation.

Zeiss | Product Manager - Software - Zeiss IMT North America: 11/2009 – 10/2011

Managed Product Management for Calypso and other software for Zeiss IMT North America. Managed Sales Operations and development of Sales Strategies with Regional Sales Managers and Distribution channels to improve product sales revenue and profit. With the focus on customer workflows, I helped Increase software sales by 50%.

Hexagon MI | Aftermarket Sales Manager for Mid-West US and Mexico: 11/2002 – 12/2008

Managed High-Tech Sales (software and hardware) in mid-west US and Mexico. In addition, managed Operations and helped develop Strategies with Direct Sales force and Distribution channels to generate over $5 million in software sales annually.

Hexagon MI | Technical Software Sales Manager for Mid-West US: 10/1998 – 10/2002

Provided technical and sales assistance to both Direct and Distribution channels to increase sales 25% annually.

Hexagon MI | Systems Integration Engineer: 11/1995 – 10/1998

Engineer in charge of installing and configuring Quality Control software in manufacturing environments all over USA.

EDUCATION

Illinois Institute of Technology | MBA in International Business & Strategic Management: 9/1996 – 6/1999

King's College London | BEng Joint Hons in Electronic & Electrical Engineering/ Economics: 10/1989 – 6/1993

Dates attended 1989– 1993

LANGUAGES

English, Serbian, Croatian, some Spanish and Russian

MISC

Author of over 15 US and 30 global patents, Certified Studio Engineer, Human Machine Interface research for music production, video gamer since 1980, https://soundcloud.com/big-girl-and-dirty-boy