Senior Learning Experience Designer

Matthew Grunewald

Learning that performs. Change that sticks.

20+ years designing, teaching, and leading enterprise learning. From Slack adoption for 154,000 people at Apple to generative AI rollout, the work is judged by what people do differently afterwards. Enterprise tech, healthcare, aviation, defense, and government.

My Journey

Two decades. Seven countries. Nine industries. One mission.

5× Course output growth

154K+ Apple employees supported

85%+ First-pass 508/WCAG compliance

200+ Learning experiences designed

Portfolio

Built for the problem, not the tool.

Every project below started with a performance gap. They are grouped by the problem they were built to solve; the tool that turned out to be right for each one is named on the project itself.

StorylineBranching

Key Leadership Styles

A non-linear, scenario-based course where custom variables and state changes drive immediate feedback and badge-based progress.

View course ›

AI-assistedFinance

Alternative Credit Markets

Private lending, CLO structures, interval funds, and portfolio risk, explored through interactive scenarios instead of static slides. Built for demonstration and discussion; all figures shown are illustrative only.

View course ›

AI-assistedGamified

Call Center Academy

Customer service skills built through a gamified academy modeled on real call scenarios. Learners earn points, unlock badges as they progress, and receive a personalized certificate on completion.

View course ›

RiseModular

Building Clarity & Trust at Work

Progressive modules that move from self-awareness to real-world application, designed to support reflection and everyday practice.

Check it out ›

RiseMultimedia

Mindfulness Basics

Core principles in a calm, paced structure, with guided meditation videos personally scripted, recorded, and edited end to end.

Check it out ›

CaptivateAI Visuals

Foundations of Mindfulness

Historical origins, physiological benefits, and the Four Attitudes, with AI-generated visuals acting as a narrative guide throughout.

View course ›

CaptivateFederal Healthcare

CMS: QIS Training

In-person ILT converted into a modular, non-linear onboarding experience for state surveyors, built with SME collaboration.

View course ›

StorylineUDL

Accessible Learning by Design

Learners toggle between a styled layout and an accessibility-optimized version to feel how contrast, motion, and navigation shape usability.

View course ›

RiseSelf-paced

Interactive Resume

A walkthrough rather than a document: a short video intro, design experience, and industry background, explored in any order.

Check it out ›

AI-assistedHuman-led

A Deeper Look

An interactive field guide documenting the research, design methodology, and AI-assisted process behind this portfolio, from early drafts to final polish. Human-led throughout, start to finish.

Jump to launch ›

Point of view

How I would build it here.

Start with the business performance problems, not a course catalogue.

Then build reusable standards: templates, accessibility baselines, review workflows, publishing pipelines, so every project after the first one gets cheaper and faster.

Measure from day one, so the function can prove its value.

And plan for AI-assisted production early, because it changes the economics of what a small team can deliver.

That is how I built it at Apple, from a standing start to more than a hundred learning experiences in under three years. The architecture outlived any single course.

Facilitation

Teaching, and teaching the teachers.

Most of this career has happened in rooms, not only in authoring tools. This is the part of the job that never publishes to an LMS.

In the room

Armed Forces Academy, Slovakia · nowCadets in ninety-minute blocks, groups of about fourteen, streamed from pre-intermediate to advanced.
U.S. Department of Defense, AfghanistanPilot, maintenance, safety and anti-terrorism training. Classroom English blended into on-the-job aviation radio calls, tracked on a dashboard of exam scores and instructor feedback.
EF Education First, ChinaCross-cultural communication training delivered across hospitality, aviation and maritime.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid ServicesReplaced week-long in-person workshops for nurse surveyors with SCORM and Section 508 compliant virtual delivery.

Teaching the teachers

U.S. Department of Defense, Iraq · 2010Ran and improved train-the-trainer programmes across a broad range of professional skills. The first time the job was explicitly about the instructors rather than the learners, and the thread has run through the work ever since.
1-800AccountantTrained CPA subject matter experts in adult learning principles and in Rise and Storyline, so the content team could build without me.
Armed Forces Academy · nowA train-the-trainer programme built so the academy’s own faculty carry the instruction after the fellowship ends.
AppleMentored five new instructional designers, one of them an incoming manager, through Apple’s delivery tools and brand standards. Deliberate bench strength, so the team did not depend on any one person, me included.
Apple · the COVID shiftBuilt a reusable storyboard template so instructor-led trainers who suddenly had open capacity could convert their own material into eLearning. It multiplied what a small team could produce.
Little Bit Therapeutic Riding CenterVolunteer onboarding and digital learning that raised training consistency and readiness. Recognised as Volunteer of the Month.

Leading the work

The Mindful DesignFounded and directed a nonprofit: incorporated it, won IRS 501(c)(3) approval, and built governance and operations from a $2,500 starting budget.
EF Education FirstLed a cross-functional international team from concept to launch on Agile and Kanban, coordinating through JIRA and Confluence.
Apple · accessibility remediationLed a three-person effort when a publishing bug broke compliance across 30+ courses. Restored in two weeks with no delay to active work.
Apple · tool evaluationLed the Miro evaluation, built a pre-contract storyboard prototype, and took it through to global launch.

AI & Engineering

Built with AI, shipped to production.

Not prompting as a party trick. Real infrastructure, under version control, with the secrets kept where secrets belong.

Chatbots grounded in real sources

The assistant on this site answers from my own career library, not from whatever the model happens to recall. A real source set, retrieved at query time, so the answers stay accountable to the material instead of inventing a plausible version of me.

API keys that never reach the browser

The Claude and ElevenLabs keys sit server-side behind a Cloudflare backend. A key shipped in client code is a key you have already lost, so every call routes through a backend that holds the secret and the browser only ever receives the answer.

Version control and deliberate deploys

GitHub holds the source of truth and Cloudflare builds the published branch. Work lands for review first and only reaches the live site on a deliberate push, which means every change is reviewable before it ships and reversible after.

AI-assisted production, cross-checked

Storyline and Rise builds move faster with AI in the loop, with structure, copy, and code cross-checked across Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to catch what a single model misses. Speed without handing over judgment, critique, or craft.

“I’ve built with the technology, not just used it.”

The course I wrote Building E-learning with AI Everything above is a claim until you can open something. This is a short course on using AI to build training: where it genuinely saves you time, where it will hand you a confident wrong answer, and what a human still has to check. Six lessons, prompts you can paste, and a coach on the page that answers what the lessons do not. Open the resource ›

Current project · Slovakia, 2026–2027

Courses built to outlast the fellow who wrote them.

I am an English Language Fellow with the U.S. Department of State, placed through the U.S. Embassy at the Armed Forces Academy of General Milan Rastislav Štefánik in Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia. The academy operates under the Slovak Ministry of Defence, is the country’s only institution educating future officers, and holds NATO Partnership Training Education Centre status, so it also runs career education for officers from NATO member and partner countries. I teach speaking-focused English to cadets in ninety-minute blocks, in groups of about fourteen, streamed from pre-intermediate to advanced.

In July I get on a plane. So the real design problem was never this year’s lessons. It is what stays on the shelf after the American leaves, and the brief I set myself is a program the academy’s own faculty can run without me in the room.

Train-the-trainer built so the department’s language teachers carry the instruction themselves, rather than inheriting a course only I know how to teach.
Instructor-led classes in the room, web-based training the cadets can repeat on their own time, and training video produced end to end, so the program does not collapse into whichever format happens to be convenient.
Storyline and Rise modules handed over with the source files, not just the published output, so the academy can revise them for cadets I will never meet.
An AI tutor for speaking practice, on the same stack as my mindfulness work: GitHub for version control, Cloudflare for hosting, keys held server-side.
Teacher development alongside the department’s language faculty, run as discussion clubs, lectures, and consultations, with the outcomes headed for a practical handbook or an article in the academy’s journal, Vojenské reflexie.
Cultural exchange between the U.S. and Slovakia woven through the teaching rather than bolted on beside it.

A fellowship that ends in a handover instead of a gap.

Modalities

Format follows function.

Facilitated, self-paced, blended, or video. The solution is driven by the need, not the medium.

Facilitated. Live workshops, in person or virtual.

Self-paced. Interactive eLearning that fits any schedule.

Blended. The best of live and on-demand, together.

Video-based. Scripted, produced, and edited end to end.

Experience

Across roles, sectors, and credentials.

Twenty years of measurable impact, ready to put to work for you across enterprise, healthcare, government, and technology.

80% → <5% email reliance Built the Slack adoption training that reached about 154,000 Apple employees worldwide, and changed how they communicated day to day, not just what they knew about the tool.

5× production capacity Grew Apple’s annual output from 20+ to 100+ learning experiences, not by working faster but by establishing reusable standards, templates, and review workflows that raised what the whole team could produce.

0 → 30%+ chose to take it Took enterprise digital learning from near-zero participation to more than 30%, which meant building the appetite for it alongside the catalogue.

1,000+ employees supported Designed and maintained the onboarding and professional development that 1,000+ employees nationwide actually moved through, across 100+ courses.

500+ accountants, 50 states Carried 500+ seasonal accountants through tax season, modernising 50+ compliance courses with 1,000+ revisions so the guidance held in every state and D.C.

85%+ accessible first time Hit 85%+ first-pass Section 508 and WCAG compliance, so learners who rely on captions, contrast, or a keyboard were not left waiting on a remediation pass.

90%+ delivered early Delivered more than 90% of enterprise learning initiatives ahead of schedule with stakeholder alignment intact, which is what earns a learning team its next mandate.

Founded a Washington nonprofit for accessible, evidence-based learning and run it end to end: state incorporation, IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, governance, and financial operations, launched on $2,500 of my own seed capital and since carried past that by donors. Designed, developed, and published native iOS and Android apps, applying UX/UI design and clearing each store's review guidelines for live release. Most learning leaders can describe a mobile roadmap. Fewer have shipped one. Lead all instructional design myself: self-paced, live virtual, and blended programmes in Storyline, Rise, and Adobe Creative Suite, with AI-assisted workflows doing the production lifting. I also teach the guided meditation sessions, which keeps me in the room with learners rather than only designing for them.

View on the App Store › View on Google Play ›

Supported onboarding and professional development for 500+ seasonal, tax-season-only accountants nationwide by refreshing instructor-led and digital learning experiences. Audited and modernized 50+ compliance courses, implementing 1,000+ content revisions across all 50 states and D.C. to reflect evolving federal and state tax regulations. Used Google Chat Spaces to coordinate real-time curriculum triage and rapid course-update deployment across 500+ seasonal tax staff, and built a multi-stage AI-assisted quality assurance process to catch errors earlier and keep style and wording consistent across courses.

Designed and deployed Slack adoption training for ~154,000 employees, driving one of Apple's largest collaboration tool rollouts. Led generative AI training, onboarding, and upskilling programs. Built end-to-end solutions from needs analysis through delivery, meeting Section 508 and WCAG requirements throughout.

High-consequence aviation and defense training. Conducted needs analysis with SMEs and matched delivery format (simulation, VILT, eLearning, OJT) to the actual performance gap and operational context. Created detailed storyboards and assessments.

Supported conversion of ILT into SCORM- and Section 508-compliant VILT for registered nurse surveyors. Designed regulatory and workflow training with clinical SMEs, ensuring accuracy and consistency across healthcare audiences.

Designed and delivered pilot, aircraft maintenance, safety, and anti-terrorism training aligned with U.S., NATO, and ICAO standards. Led cross-cultural training between U.S. personnel, Afghan pilots, and ATC teams.

Led a cross-functional international team of educators, designers, programmers, and technical specialists through Agile workflows (JIRA, Confluence, Kanban) to deliver large-scale learning initiatives from concept to launch. Developed professional and customer-service training for international teams across hospitality, aviation, and maritime sectors. Designed scenario-based learning to practice cross-cultural communication in realistic work contexts.

U.S. Department of Defense via DynCorp · Iraq · 2010–2011. Instructional Designer and Project Coordinator. Ran and improved train-the-trainer programmes across a broad range of professional skills, and was recognised by senior military officers for the quality of the courses and the working environment around them. This is where the train-the-trainer thread in my work starts. National Institute of Management and Administration (NIMA) · Afghanistan · 2010. Faculty Trainer and Project Coordinator. Led a project to move faculty toward modern educational pedagogy through multimedia training, and conducted faculty evaluations reported to the Afghanistan Ministry of Education. Qassim University · Buraydah, Saudi Arabia · 2009–2010. Academic Coordinator and Instructional Designer. Built and delivered courses for multi-disciplinary graduate students, including a programme that successfully prepared students to study abroad. Anderson Mori & Tomotsune · Tokyo, Japan · 2007–2009. Instructor and Curriculum Coordinator at the law firm. Designed and taught cultural diversity, leadership, and critical thinking courses, helping lawyers build the confidence that often preceded promotion. Earlier still. Progressive instructional design, training, facilitation, and leadership roles across education and financial services, including Merrill Lynch.

SituationApple had no formal eLearning: just videos and instructor-led training.

TaskI was brought in to create the program from scratch.

ActionDeveloped templates, built pilot courses, and collaborated with stakeholders across teams.

ResultLaunched 50+ courses in one year, establishing eLearning as the team's primary delivery format alongside ILT.

SituationInitial Slack training was a GIF, but it lacked accessibility features.

TaskMake the content accessible and easy to follow.

ActionRebuilt the guide as a short, pausable, captioned video.

ResultPositive user feedback led the team to adopt the captioned-video format as the standard for all future Slack training, replacing static GIFs across the program.

SituationOur courses lacked interactivity and learner engagement.

TaskFind and implement a solution to increase interactivity.

ActionSelf-taught advanced actions in Captivate and introduced them to the team.

ResultAdvanced actions became a standard part of the team's toolkit. Completion rates and knowledge-check scores improved, and the technique was adopted in all subsequent Captivate builds.

SituationLearner analytics flagged a persistent completion barrier partway through a long, linear macro-course.

TaskFix the drop-off without cutting the content learners still needed.

ActionRedesigned the course into 5 targeted microlearning experiences, each scoped to a single outcome learners could complete in one sitting.

ResultCompletion rates rose by more than 10%, and the microlearning structure became a template for future course redesigns.

SituationA publishing issue in Adobe Captivate had silently broken WCAG and Section 508 compliance across 30+ live courses.

TaskRestore compliance across every affected course without pausing active development.

ActionTraced the issue to its root cause, then directed a 3-person remediation effort to fix and republish each affected course.

ResultFull compliance restored across 30+ courses within 2 weeks, with zero delay to work already in flight.

SituationNavy training was delivered too early and often forgotten.

TaskAlign training delivery to the sailor's role and readiness timeline.

ActionConducted needs analysis across specialties and mapped timing and delivery format, including AR/VR.

ResultDelivered a training plan tied to career stage and role readiness, moving from front-loaded delivery to training that arrives when sailors actually need it.

SituationThe Crowd Training's PMP (Project Management Professional) exam-prep course was effective but dry.

TaskMake it more engaging and experiential.

ActionAdded gamification, branching, and real-world scenarios.

ResultCompletion rates rose and the course became The Crowd Training's top-rated offering. Learners cited the scenarios as the reason they stayed through to the end.

SituationApple's teams lacked a shared, collaborative whiteboarding tool.

TaskEvaluate the options and lead the rollout of the best fit.

ActionLed the tool evaluation, then built a storyboard prototype before the contract was even signed so training was ready on day one.

ResultMiro launched globally with strong day-one adoption and became a standard collaboration tool across teams.

Situation1-800Accountant needed 500+ seasonal accountants ready for tax season, but the course library had outdated content spanning federal and state-specific tax rules.

TaskAudit the curriculum for regulatory accuracy and update it fast, without losing learner confidence in highly regulated content.

ActionBuilt an AI-assisted verification workflow that checked legacy content against current federal and state guidance, then routed everything through CPA SMEs for final sign-off before publishing in Absorb LMS.

ResultCompleted a company-wide regulatory refresh in under three months, reducing compliance risk and giving every seasonal accountant current guidance before serving clients.

SituationMilitary leadership wanted standardized English training, but pilots, air traffic controllers, and maintenance crews needed highly specific aviation terminology to do their jobs safely.

TaskDesign one training solution that met leadership's standardization goals without compromising operational effectiveness in the field.

ActionMet with stakeholders across every group, then redesigned the curriculum to blend standardized communication training with role-specific aviation terminology.

ResultDelivered a solution that satisfied senior leadership while giving personnel the practical communication skills they needed, supporting Afghan-led aviation operations without sacrificing mission effectiveness.

SituationA large-scale learning initiative needed educators, graphic designers, programmers, and technical specialists working together across countries.

TaskLead the instructional design effort while keeping every discipline coordinated toward one cohesive learning solution.

ActionDirected the project from concept through delivery, using Agile practices (JIRA, Confluence, Kanban) to keep content, video, and technical workstreams visible and aligned.

ResultDelivered the international learning project on course, aligning diverse specialists around a shared instructional vision from concept through implementation.

SituationWanted to build an organization for accessible, evidence-based mindfulness education, with no existing infrastructure, funding, or operating model.

TaskLaunch a fully functioning nonprofit while keeping startup costs low.

ActionLed incorporation and IRS 501(c)(3) approval, built governance and operations, and used AI-assisted workflows to accelerate research, compliance, and content development.

ResultLaunched an operational nonprofit reaching people through live and self-paced programs, bootstrapped on a starting budget of just $2,500.

SituationCMS relied on travel-intensive, in-person instructor-led training to prepare registered nurse surveyors nationwide.

TaskModernize the learning strategy without sacrificing consistency or quality.

ActionConverted classroom training into virtual instructor-led, video, and self-paced learning, working closely with clinical SMEs to standardize content.

ResultReduced travel costs, improved training consistency, and accelerated readiness for healthcare surveyors nationwide.

SituationApple needed employees to adopt generative AI tools while meeting strict legal, security, and privacy requirements.

TaskDevelop training that promoted confident AI adoption without compromising security or data privacy.

ActionPartnered with Legal, Security, and business stakeholders to design enterprise AI training and governance-aligned guidance.

ResultEmployees across the organization adopted AI into daily workflows while staying aligned with Apple's security and privacy standards.

Ph.D.

Instructional Design & Technology

Keiser University

M.A.

Curriculum Design & Instruction

University of Phoenix

M.S.

Psychology (Positive Psychology), In Progress

Arizona State University · Expected 2028

B.S.

Philosophy

Florida State University

PMP

Project Management Professional

Project Management Institute

PTC

Public Trust Clearance

U.S. Federal Government

ICAO

Language Examiner

International Civil Aviation Organization

MMTCP

Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification

Meditation Teacher Training Program

Guidelines

The values behind the work.

Accessibility, cultural awareness, performance improvement, and continuous learning shape every project, so whatever we build together works for the people who'll actually use it.

🎯

Performance Consulting

I diagnose the real performance gap before recommending a fix, so you get the modality (simulation, VILT, eLearning, OJT) that actually closes it, not just the one I happen to prefer.

⚡

Rapid & Agile Design

PMP-certified project management applied to instructional design, so you get full ownership from needs analysis through delivery: one point of accountability, start to finish.

✦

AI-Augmented Workflows

I led generative AI training at Apple for a workforce of 154,000, and I bring that same AI-assisted workflow to your project, for faster production without substituting human judgment, critique, or craft.

📊

Measurement & Iteration

Kirkpatrick-informed evaluation built into every program, so you can see the line from reaction surveys and knowledge checks to on-the-job performance and real business results.

🎨 Design System Tokens, type, and components, all in one place. The single source of truth for every page and course View the guide 📘 Course Design Style Guide One brand, every way you teach. Shared tokens, type, and components across every delivery format Open the PDF

Expertise

Built on evidence, enabled by technology.

The frameworks, theories, and tools that shape how solutions are designed, developed, and evaluated.

Design Models

Learning Theory

Evaluation

Authoring

Design & Media

LMS & Standards

Project & Agile Tools

Games

Made for fun.

Gamification is easy to claim and harder to show, so here it is running on my own career. Three prototypes I built with AI, where the points you are collecting are the actual proof: 25 career highlights, 5 hiring signals, and the countries I have worked in.

Design Blocks. A Tetris-style falling-block puzzle: clear lines to collect 25 proof points from my career.

Evidence! Catch falling proof points across 5 hiring signals before they hit the ground.

Mat-Man. Navigate the maze and collect 6 flags from the countries where I've worked.

Recommendations

Trusted to deliver.

Feedback from colleagues, managers, and stakeholders across enterprise, defense, and healthcare.

I worked with Matthew at Apple and was very impressed with his professionalism, attention to detail, and strong instructional design chops. He's someone you can count on and knows what it takes to get things done collaboratively on a deadline.

Diane Coradlo, MBA Sr Instructional Designer & Strategist Apple · Same team

I worked with Matthew for 6 years at Apple. As a course developer, he was very methodical and always approached his work with diligence and care. He was always open to feedback and turned things around quickly.

Jim Epler Senior Web & Instructional Media Producer, SF Bay Area Apple · Same team · 6 years

Matt Grunewald has been a valuable asset to the Training Department for the Department of Defense. He headed a group of instructors in the design and implementation of a successful OJT program for Afghan helicopter mechanics at the NATO-supported Joint Aviation Facility…

Wells Rutland Program Management, Educational Consultant & Language Specialist U.S. DoD · Direct supervisor

I worked closely with Matthew on an instructional design project. I was new to the project and he was instrumental in getting me up to speed quickly. He really understands instructional design and the agile (SAM) ID model.

Dana Kocalis Instructional Designer & eLearning Developer, Expert in Articulate 360 Apple · Same team

See all 13 recommendations on LinkedIn ›