Fix pronunciation in AI Text-to-Speech

I am trying to get the word "designee" pronounced correctly in Storyline 360 AI text-to-speech. I tried ssml but it still doesn't seem to work. I tried adding the following but the narration just says "The word is" and does not say the word designee:

<speak> The word is <phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="ˌdɛzɪˈniː">Designee</phoneme>. </speak>

I also tried various ways to spell the word phonetically, but nothing seems to work--

Suggestions???

 

Thanks!!

Kim