As a design leader, I empower my teams to be strong partners with their product and engineering counterparts. I put people at the center of decisions, focusing on collaboration, customer outcomes, and team health.
I’m passionate about design
- Solving real problems for customers
- Making sense of complex problems and systems
- Understanding customer needs and opportunities
- Collaborating with cross-functional partners to develop vision and strategy
- Pairing with Product and Engineering to build and test ideas
- Facilitating conversations to build shared alignment
- Imagining multi-modal experiences and services (web, mobile, hardware, spaces, and more)
- Coaching and mentoring
- Learning and applying new strategies
- Empowering teams to do their best work
My skills add value at any stage
My experience across a diverse range of companies has helped me see rich opportunities in complexity. I adapt quickly and leverage my strengths based on the company and customer needs.
🌱
Find product-market fit in early-stage companies
In 0-1 and startup contexts, I have the hands-on experience to do more with less. I recognize that everyone contributes at this stage in a company’s lifecycle. I partner closely with others to uncover opportunities and visualize the possibilities.
- Identify and prioritize the customer signals to define an impactful roadmap.
- Articulate product vision and customer journey so the team operates from a shared understanding of why.
- Define and iterate on end-to-end customer experiences so the team learns rapidly, taking advantage of opportunities and reducing risk.
- Build trust and relationships to foster a lasting culture of collaboration and innovation.
🚀
Optimize and empower growth
Scaling comes with unique challenges, whether a company is pursuing a new market segment, expanding its offerings, or growing its teams. In this context, my leadership skills help me identify what’s needed to unblock growth and scale the team’s performance with the organization’s needs.
- Assess design practice maturity to prioritize growth areas.
- Co-create culture, process, and standards that empower contributors as the team scale.
- Mentor teams and nurture skill specialization so contributors can go deeper into areas that accelerate growth.
- Bring new team members along in learning so they become valuable contributors quickly.
🏙️
Unblock innovation in established companies
In established and enterprise companies, I help teams connect with customers and each other. I use my systems thinking skills to navigate complexity, drive alignment, and bring people along through change.
- Visualize the big picture to ensure the team and leadership work from a shared understanding.
- Foster collaboration across silos and product verticals to unblock innovation.
- Articulate customer needs and opportunities so the team can make well-informed decisions.
- Facilitate ideation and alignment to get the most out of our meeting time.
- Validate solutions and usability to reduce risk.
My values inform my leadership style
I value partnership and learning. As a leader that looks like:
Collaboration
I partner with others to build upon ideas and articulate vision. I listen to my team’s needs and work in the background to remove roadblocks in their way.
Curiosity
I want to know more, and I’m excited to hear other points of view. I can dive into details while maintaining sight of the big picture. I look for alternative approaches and opportunities to test and learn.
Connection
I put people first. I work to empower my customers, and the best way to do that is to empower the team working to serve them.
🌈 But you don’t have to take my word for it.
FAQs
What certifications do you have?
Design Leadership Fundamentals I
Design Dept.
What do you need to do your best work?
I pride myself on being able to adapt to any context. While I am tool agnostic, here are two things that serve me well, no matter the team, the product, or the scale:
Questions
I want to learn, so I ask questions and observe people in action. I question my assumptions and reframe the problem to find new opportunities.
Not all questions need answers. Sometimes, the adventure is in the asking.
Sticky Notes
I am a spatial thinker and I love to make things with my hands. Digital or physical, sticky notes help me work through ideas.
A IDEO, we ran out of spoons at breakfast, so I made one out of stickies. I always have them on hand.
