Zachary
Stedt.
Building digital banking products at scale in Chicago.
Formerly a journalist. Started in network infrastructure.
About
I'm a product leader based in Chicago with 10+ years in financial services. At U.S. Bank, I lead multiple journey teams distributed across the US and India — responsible for payment activation, customer onboarding, and business banking engagement on the digital platform.
My path here is unconventional. I spent years as a network engineer before earning a master's in journalism from Northwestern and reporting for Chicago Public Radio. That arc — infrastructure, storytelling, digital strategy — is what shaped how I think about product. The clearest systems thinking I know came from newsrooms; the most useful communication skills I have came from being a network engineer who had to explain things to non-engineers.
Outside of work, I read widely and travel when I can. I keep a full reading list and a record of every flight I've taken.
Work
Access & Authentication
Manages financial account access, feature entitlements, and function-level controls — ensuring the right users have the right capabilities at every level of a financial platform.
Serves millions of daily active banking customers across web and mobile.
Onboarding & Activation
Guides new financial institution users through discovering, setting up, and activating their accounts, features, and functions — reducing friction at the most critical stage of the customer journey.
Led payment setup redesign targeting 15%+ increase in hardware order conversion.
Digital Strategy & Publishing
Led digital content strategy and web presence for a 400,000-member national professional association — including a full site redesign, eBook publishing, and tablet magazine channel.
Redesigned site improved user experience and measurably increased engagement.
ASCIIboard
A personal project — an iOS keyboard extension that lets users browse, create, and paste ASCII art anywhere a keyboard appears. Built for the joy of text-based creativity on mobile.
A personal experiment in text-based creativity on iOS.
Bruh
An iOS app for people with ADHD and time blindness. Instead of a single reminder that's easy to ignore, Bruh sends an escalating series of nudges that grow harder to dismiss — meeting you where your attention actually is.
A practical tool, not a novelty.
Trvl
An Apple Watch app and complication for travelers. A modernized take on the classic GMT complication — shows your home time and local time at a glance, designed for the wrist without the fuss of traditional world clock apps.
A cleaner way to stay grounded across time zones.
Contact
- Emailzjs@stedt.co
- GitHubgithub.com/zach-op
- LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/zachstedt
- Résuméstedt.co/resume