Murdo Connochie
Senior Strategy & Operations Leader Working with Fortune 100 Companies
[email protected] · murdo.xyz
Results-oriented creative strategist and operations leader currently in Shopify's Business Operations craft with 9 years of experience at KPMG, driving business growth and leading high-performing teams.
Expertise in strategy development, business analysis, and service design. Led cross-functional teams of 10–30 professionals, resulting in four app and three web launches across areas such as digital payment solutions, mobile trading app development, and core banking system implementation. Proven ability to align teams, develop go-to-market strategies, and deliver exceptional user experiences.
Experience
Shopify – Toronto, Canada
Senior Business Operations Lead, Support Operations
Nov 2023 – Present
- Lead a team of 25 crafters responsible for scoping, triaging, and coordinating high-impact Support projects, successfully scaling the team's monthly request volume from approximately 60 to over 100 without increasing headcount. This resulted in a 50% reduction in triage time and a customer satisfaction rating of 4.5 out of 5.
- Revamped the support hand-off processes for Shopify Theme Partners to encourage higher theme quality, decrease support demand, and enhance data accuracy.
- Managed the Support response team during a significant trial pricing change at Shopify, focused on weekly insights, rapid feedback loops, and empowered team members to react to a spike in Support demand and Help Center Assistant AI hallucinations.
- Collaborated cross-functionally to prepare Support for the MrBeast Shop app installation program, which achieved approximately 370,000 installs while incurring only $19,000 in support costs.
- Developed comprehensive launch awareness tools that allowed Support to plan 1–2 months in advance, compared to the previous timeline of just 1–2 weeks.
KPMG – Toronto, Canada
Senior Manager, Customer & Strategy Consulting
Oct 2014 – Nov 2023
- Digital Wallet: Interim Head of Payments at Fortune 10 North American retailer, serving 22M customers; oversaw strategy and product management for digital wallet and app-based prepaid account with 30+ team members involved. Led comprehensive user research, synthesizing 500+ user surveys to inform product strategy and accelerate backlog prioritization. Facilitated the design of 200+ Figma screens, aligning executive support and enabling a clear development path to MVP for global engineering teams. Assisted in the cross-platform integration of a Buy Now Pay Later product, orchestrating collaboration among design, store operations, and marketing teams (15+ team members). Pioneered a cohesive go-to-market strategy for all new payment products, ensuring a seamless customer experience and market penetration. Conducted weekly payments technology training sessions, enhancing the skill set of 8 junior team members.
- Trading App: Directed the development of a distinctive trading platform, focusing on mobile UX and the integration of innovative features like customized notifications and automated trading tools. Produced detailed user flows and requirements, effectively reducing estimated design sprints by 50% and accelerating time to market. Advocated for the deployment of a native app, leading to a cross-platform solution on web, iOS, and Android, ensuring broad market accessibility. Launched an intuitive, customizable platform that received strong customer approval, reflected in a 4.1/5 App Store rating, demonstrating user-centric design approach.
- Core Banking: Led the specification and design of a new core banking platform, enhancing online and in-person customer experiences, particularly for savings operations. Conducted 3 focus groups and 15 user interviews to shape product design and solution requirements. Pioneered a digital savings card for Apple Wallet - a first in the UK market, fostering a culture of innovation within the organization. The new banking platform, currently in testing phase, is projected to manage £3bn in customer assets, putting it in the top 10 of community banks in the UK.
- Wiki Tool: Led 5 user researchers and 3 UX designers to develop a new internal wiki tool, streamlining knowledge distribution across various departments. Navigated budget constraints to deliver a robust prototype within a tight three-week deadline, utilizing Axure and Bootstrap. Successfully showcased potential for enhanced knowledge sharing and software reusability across government departments, fostering a stronger sense of inter-departmental collaboration.
- Other: Collaborated with CEO of a fintech to refresh five-year corporate plan and communicate strategy leading to a successful $10m+ raise. Launched a digital mobility tool for healthcare workers, including digitizing questionnaires and data, resulting in a 25% improvement in worker efficiency, earlier issue detection, and the facilitation of data-driven social interventions. Devised a US-based software firm's UK market entry planning and sales approach for major UK banks, identifying their top ten prospects and key win themes. Developed over 50 future propositions for the mortgages and savings markets, and refined these to 20 future business model options to support a bank's strategic refresh.
Liberty Mutual Insurance – Boston, MA
Analyst, Digital Strategy
Jun 2013 – Aug 2013
- Conceptualized and prototyped a digital insurance ID card for Apple Wallet, later integrated into the core iOS and Android apps, now utilized by over 2M customers. Assisted in the development of a disaster preparation app, successfully pivoted into an accessible online guide, showcasing adaptability to project constraints while delivering customer value.
Side Projects
- Scout Reader: Launched a native iOS/iPadOS app called Scout designed for deep Farcaster users who want a lean, distraction‑free, read‑only experience without the friction of signing in or managing a crypto wallet. Built entirely with Swift and SwiftUI, it offers organized feeds, on‑device search, offline bookmarking, and customizable filters. Within two months it surpassed 200 organic users through word‑of‑mouth alone.
- NFT: Sketched, minted, and launched an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain to commemorate the Farcaster protocol - it can be found here.
- Wall Street's Best: Launched Wall Street's Best - an iOS / iMessage sticker app based on r/wallstreetbets culture in only one weekend. Launching weeks before the initial GameStop saga, it ultimately reached Top 50 in the iMessage App Store.
- Neobanked: Ran a newsletter focused on digital-only banks that was published every second Sunday throughout 2020. The archive of issues lives here.
- Murdo.xyz: Embarked on a mission to build my blog using open web standards, while simultaneously refining my CSS, Markdown, and HTML skills. As part of this ongoing journey, I discovered Jekyll, a straightforward, blog-aware, static site generator. I hosted the site on GitHub Pages and integrated Google Analytics for a lightweight and non-intrusive means of visitor tracking. The site underwent a redesign in 2025 focused on simplicity and readability.
Speaking
- Future of Retailing – Heriot-Watt University (Oct 2018)
- Humanizing Customer Insights – CIH Housing Conference (Jun 2017)
- Blockchain's Potential – SFE Executive Briefing (Jun 2016)
Publications
Education
Heriot-Watt University – Edinburgh, UK
Bachelor of Actuarial Science (2010–2014)