Miles Pierce VT

Miles Pierce

Austin, TX

Engagement Director & Founding Member

How Miles Can Help

  • Building and managing highly specialized technical teams
  • Creating both useful and usable products and services
  • Assessing customer care processes for cost reduction opportunities

Executive Experience

  • Executive Director – Ecosystems & Innovation
  • Executive Director – Usability & Design
  • Executive Director – Human Factors Engineering
  • Director – Program Management

Education

  • MS, Telecommunications Engineering, SMU, Dallas, TX
  • BBA, Finance, University of Houston, Houston, TX

Specialties

  • Improving usability and design for new hardware and software products
  • Rapid software development utilizing Agile development methods and techniques

Success Stories

  • Led Agile development team in the creation, development and delivery of new innovative applications and services for AT&T
  • Led development of a new program for wireless handset and tablet devices, including advanced testing methods and metrics to define predictive relationships between usability and device returns
  • Led end-to-end operational analysis of AT&T’s video and internet operations (ordering, provisioning, installation, use, care and billing) resulting in annual cost savings of $151M

Biography

Miles is a professional manager with extensive knowledge in software development and telecommunications. He joined AT&T in 1983 in Houston, Texas. as a computer operations manager just as the application of computers and telecommunications in the corporate environment was exploding. He quickly adapted to the fast paced and ever-changing environment of Information Technology holding a variety of leadership positions in computer operations and data communications.

After three years, Miles was moved to the company’s headquarters in St. Louis, Mo. where he was responsible for the design and development of software applications for the company’ largest software applications. His ability to lead teams and produce results were quickly noticed and he was selected to represent the organization in a newly formed corporate strategic planning group where he was responsible for developing SBC’s overall strategic plan.

In 1995, Miles moved to Austin, Texas, to start the advanced technology subsidiary, AT&T Labs.   He oversaw all aspects of the company’s internal computer and communications systems and was responsible for planning and implementing a new voice and data network infrastructure for the Austin facility. He successfully managed the company’s software development, systems support, LAN/WAN administration, video conferencing, computer security, and operations.

In 2000, Miles launched AT&T’s Human Factors organization and laboratory. He started with a small team of highly skilled Human Factors engineers whose purpose was to evaluate newly developed products and services for ease of use.   Seeing the enormous impact and benefit the team was having, the team quickly expanded. Through Miles’ leadership, usability was formally added to the company’s product development process in 2005 to ensure all new software development be reviewed for usability prior to launch. The team grew five-fold over the next few years and included two state-of-the-art usability laboratories where new concepts and designs were tested with more than 3000 people annually.

During Miles’ tenure over the Human Factors organization, the team achieved many successes for AT&T including development of a new program for wireless handset and tablet devices which utilized advanced testing methods and metrics to define predictive relationships between usability and device returns. The program saved the company more than $100M annually.

In 2011, Miles was selected to work in AT&T’s newly formed innovation subsidiary, the Foundry. The Foundry is a fast-paced, collaborative environment where AT&T and technology providers work to deliver applications and services to customers more quickly than ever before. As executive director of Usability and Design, Miles’ team utilized Agile development methodologies and human-centered design techniques to understand user needs and business opportunities to create more than 200 projects and deploy dozens of new products and services for AT&T.

He is thrilled to share his wealth and breadth of experience with other businesses, as they look to new technologies and products for their employees and customers.

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