⚡ First — go silent before you touch anything
Your network is mostly Synchrony. Do these three before the first edit. Silent edits still update the search index, so you stay findable.
- Settings & Privacy → Visibility → "Visibility of your LinkedIn activity" → "Share profile updates with your network" → toggle OFF. The master switch. Leave it off the whole time (or for good).
- When you add the Aspire Digital position, the add-position dialog shows an inline "Notify network" toggle. Turn that OFF too — the new-position add is the single loudest action, so double-cover it.
- Confirm Settings → Visibility → "Edit your public profile" is set to public / visible-to-everyone. That's what keeps you findable to a stranger searching "Aspire Digital Central Ohio."
With the broadcast toggle off you can do the whole rebuild in one sitting — no need to spread it over days. Only the profile-photo swap can occasionally surface on its own, so do the photo on a separate day if you want it maximally clean.
① Headline
VP, Digital Buy & Emerging Payments at Synchrony · Co-Founder & Technical Director at Aspire Digital · 4× U.S. patent holder (Direct2Device)
② About
I help people and organizations unblock what's actually stopping them. I get to the real problem, think creatively within the constraints, and deliver what works now instead of what's theoretically perfect. Twenty-two years across PNC, Huntington, and Synchrony taught me one thing. The bottleneck is almost never the engineering. It's business alignment, stakeholder fear, or the team that already gave up on the tool you handed them. So I work where those problems actually live, in the conversations between product, credit, design, and the customer. Then I deliver. At Synchrony I lead the Emerging Payments train. I co-invented Direct2Device (D2D), now four issued U.S. patents across 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025. I launched the API Advisory Board across 25+ teams. I ship the digital wallet platform every SYF merchant is now asking to enable. I was recognized with the 2025 Synchrony CEO Award for the cross-functional partnership between Emerging Payments and the credit team. Outside SYF, my wife Jaime and I run Aspire Digital, a husband-and-wife studio that helps small business owners compete like enterprises. We pair world-class tools with a person who actually cares about their success. Now in our third year, we build and run websites, CRM, and AI systems for a growing roster of Central Ohio businesses. Right now I'm hands-on in AI: token efficiency, RAG, on-prem deployment, and the workforce-adoption side of the work. Most enterprise AI investment isn't failing on the technology. It's failing on the people layer. That's the work that matters. Five kids, two boxers, central Ohio for 20+ years. I smoke meats, lead the HOA, and care more than is professionally appropriate.
③ Experience
Four entries, not eight. Synchrony (4 roles) and Huntington (3 roles) are each one consolidated entry — most-senior title as the header, original start date, every role timestamped in the description. Add Aspire first; delete any old separate Synchrony/Huntington role entries as you go.
Aspire Digital — Co-Founder & Technical Director
March 2023 – Present · Delaware, Ohio (Hybrid)
ADD as a new position (watch the inline "Notify network" toggle — turn it OFF)
Co-founded with my wife Jaime in 2023. I handle strategy, architecture, and technical direction. Jaime leads UX and creative. We help small business owners compete like enterprises by pairing world-class tools with a person who actually cares about their success. Now in our third year, we build and run websites, CRM systems, and AI workflows for a growing roster of Central Ohio businesses. The work draws on the same rigor I bring to product leadership at scale: figure out the real problem, design around how people actually behave, deliver what works now.
Synchrony Financial — VP, Digital Buy & Emerging Payments
September 2017 – Present · Columbus, OH
ONE consolidated entry — all 4 SYF roles. Delete any old separate Synchrony entries.
Four roles at Synchrony since 2017, now running two payments trains in parallel. VP, Digital Buy Leader (Nov 2024 – Present). Lead a second train building Synchrony's native wallet and e-commerce checkout, a fully custom solution for our private-label store cards. It runs on Synchrony-built rails rather than the card networks, which is what lets it do things a standard network checkout can't. VP, Emerging Payments Leader (Jun 2022 – Present). Lead the Emerging Payments train. Shipped Card Access and the Digital Wallet Dashboard; the temporary shopping pass feature outperforms Apple and Google combined in usage. Recognized with the 2025 Synchrony CEO Award for the partnership between Emerging Payments and the credit team. VP, API Program Leader (May 2020 – Jun 2022). Built the API Advisory Board, an advisory model rather than a tollgate, aligning 25+ agile teams on standardized API language and templates. AVP, Digital Apply Product Owner (Sep 2017 – May 2020). Owned digital cardholder acquisition (dApply). Delivered the migration roughly 12 months ahead of schedule by fixing the business-alignment bottleneck, and shipped Prefill at a ~2400 bps conversion lift against an 800 bps projection.
Huntington National Bank — Digital Product Execution Manager
May 2011 – September 2017
ONE consolidated entry — all 3 Huntington roles. Delete any old separate Huntington entries.
Six years at Huntington, from the branch into digital product. Digital Product Execution Manager (Sep 2015 – Sep 2017). First role outside the branch, a lateral pay cut that was fully worth it. Built the Personalized URL (Perl) platform, the early solution to the in-branch-to-home credit-attribution problem that later became Direct2Device at Synchrony. Branch Manager, Delaware OH (Oct 2012 – Sep 2015). Ran the Delaware branch. Built Excel-based scheduling and tracking because no corporate equivalent existed. Mentored branch managers twice my age. The philosophy that stuck: infrastructure and process are vehicles; the real work is enabling the people on the team. Assistant Branch Manager (May 2011 – Oct 2012). The move from PNC after seven years, onto the management track.
PNC Financial Services — Licensed Financial Sales Consultant
October 2003 – May 2011 · replace description
Update existing entry
Seven years and eight months in the consultant chair. Learned to listen for what someone actually needed versus what they walked in asking for. That skill has paid for itself a thousand times since.
④ Volunteer Experience (new)
Jr Pacers Youth Football & Cheer
Board Member, Registration Officer · Cause: Children · 2021 – Present
Add under Volunteer Experience — not work Experience. It reads as service, not business.
I serve on the board of Jr Pacers, a volunteer-run youth football and cheer program in Central Ohio, as Registration Officer. I run registration and the club's digital operations so coaches and parents can spend their time on the kids instead of paperwork. Community-funded, all-volunteer, and worth every hour.
⑤ Skills
Add (first three are "Top Skills")
- Systems thinking
- Pragmatic problem-solving
- AI product direction
- Cross-functional leadership
- Product strategy
- Stakeholder alignment
- API strategy
- Digital wallets & payments
- Token efficiency & RAG
- Mentorship
Remove (boilerplate)
- ✕ Negotiation
- ✕ Communication
- ✕ Mobile Payments
Certifications — remove
- ✕ Mastering Management Essentials
⑥ Patents (new section)
Under Accomplishments → Patents. Title: Network data management and data security (Direct2Device / D2D) · Office: USPTO · Issue date: October 5, 2021 · Inventors: Taylor Young, Chris Otten · Assignee: Synchrony Bank.
Co-invented Direct2Device (D2D), a tokenized one-time link from an originating device to a user device that creates a secure, ephemeral channel for sensitive financial transactions. Solves the in-branch-to-home credit-attribution problem at scale; used company-wide at Synchrony and cited in shareholder communications. Four issued U.S. patents (2021, 2023, 2024, 2025) plus two published applications. Co-invented with Taylor Young; assigned to Synchrony Bank.
| Patent No. | Filed | Issued |
|---|---|---|
| 11,138,599 | Apr 1, 2021 | Oct 5, 2021 |
| 11,615,412 | Aug 12, 2021 | Mar 28, 2023 |
| 11,978,047 | Feb 9, 2023 | May 7, 2024 |
| 12,443,948 | Apr 5, 2024 | Oct 14, 2025 |
Source of truth: memory/drawers/personal-brand/linkedin-rewrite.md · Photo: swap to the locked headshot · Banner: leave default for now.