I build high-performing teams that scale without sacrificing quality, velocity, or team health.

I start fires (the good kind).

I craft structures to enable Design to influence business strategy from the earliest stages and throughout the business lifecycle:

1. Establish Design as strategic counsel: represent Design at the executive level to ensure we provide insight and guidance where product roadmaps and market strategies originate
2. Connect design decisions to business outcomes: create measurement systems that demonstrate ROI through revenue, retention, and cost reduction metrics
3. Build influence into the organizational DNA: embed user-centered thinking and decision making into every department, not just those that build products
4. Transform design from reactive to proactive: use research and customer feedback to identify opportunities, and help drive product direction rather than responding to predetermined requirements

Consistency across distributed teams and product lines requires more than shared tools - it demands shared ways of working. I've successfully unified teams across multiple countries by providing systems and guidance over top-down control.

Cultural bridges I build:

• Unified design standards through strategic integration where teams collaborate to establish principles that work across markets and products
• Governance led by senior designers and managers who understand both local contexts and global objectives
• Strong relationships with Engineering, including establishing Front-End and Mobile Architect roles that ensure technical design consistency without stifling regional innovation
• Time zone coordination frameworks that enable continuous async productivity and autonomy while maintaining quality standards and shared improvement

I introduce collaborative ad-hoc conversations and planned workshops to engage cross-functional teams as active participants with the goal of shifting the shared vocabulary from "build features" to "solve user problems". Over time, this customer-focus and user-awareness becomes embedded into the organizational DNA, transforming how people approach problems.

The organizational shift:

• Engineering teams start with "What user problem are we solving?"
• Product managers integrate user journey thinking into their requirements
• Teams prototype solutions to gather feedback on concepts before building features
• Stakeholders point to user research evidence to defend decisions or raise new ideas
• Sales teams are able to articulate value through user outcome language and user empathy
• User-centered metrics become primary success indicators across departments and are layered into company KPIs

My job is to provide a clear vision and strategic context while removing obstacles that prevent execution. To do this, I:

• Enable autonomous decision-making within known boundaries so teams know when to make a call, and when they should raise a flag
• Lean on craft leaders and people managers closest to a situation to make decisions and backing them up, while providing coaching and guidance
• Create ownership opportunities for team members to drive initiatives that influence product direction
• Clearly recognize both individual and team wins, visibly giving credit where it's due
• Intentionally gather diverse perspectives and approaches to solve complex problems
• Actively build a reputation for transparency and candidness with leaders and teams

World-class organizations attract talent through compelling challenges and opportunities to grow. I recruit for potential and adaptability, then coach for breakthrough results.

My talent strategy:

• Recruit diverse talent at every level to bring different perspectives and approaches to complex problems
• Spot high potential candidates looking for their first shot or next major step
• Build reputation as development-focused leader that top talent seeks for career advancement
• Rely on strong team members to bring in the people that they want to work with

Strategic design leadership requires knowing when to direct from above and when to dive into the weeds with the team.

I step into critical design initiatives directly, mentoring managers and team members through complex challenges. I model design excellence standards and expectations, and apply different frameworks to best solve the challenges at hand. I ask a lot of questions.

I ask a lot of questions.

Strategic execution balance:

• Stay close to the work as it's created by joining design kickoffs and critiques
• Gathering feedback from Product Managers and Engineers to ensure a wide perspective
• Participate in design work that shapes organizational capability and sets quality standards
• Lead critical customer interactions alongside team members so they can develop client relationship skills

Product Managers and Designers have significant overlap in their skills, outlooks and responsibilities, so I position Design as strategic colleagues from the start of a project, not when it's time to execute on a PRD.

My partnership framework:

• Early strategic alignment: Design leadership participates in roadmap planning and market opportunity identification
• Shared discovery: user research and competitive analysis are joint efforts that inform product strategy
• Collaborative prioritization: designers influence feature prioritization and resource allocation decisions using data from research and analytics
• Integrated planning: design feasibility is assessed alongside technical and business feasibility from concept stage and designs adapt to the overarching needs

We deliver better products, faster when we eliminate friction between disciplines and treat our internal tools as important products in their own right.

I've done this by:

• Establishing Front-End Architect roles to bridge design vision with technical reality to ensure proposed solutions were feasible well in advance of the need
• Partnering with Engineering to build React and Angular component libraries alongside tooling like Storybook to mirror design system for seamless handoff and consistent implementation
• Establishing design-development workflow processes that reduce iteration cycles, encourage hand-in-hand iteration, and improve quality outcomes
• Designing collaboration rituals that embed design insights into technical decision-making processes and technical perspectives into design prototypes

Robust research programs make user intelligence a foundational element of strategic planning. I build user testing pools that enable rapid validation and continuous feedback, create "Voice of Customer" programs that unify disparate feedback sources into strategic intelligence, and establish research methodologies that integrate qualitative insights with quantitative analytics. As importantly, I proactively distribute access and insights to other organizations.

I know it's working when:

• Product teams shift from assumption-driven to insight-driven development
• Engineering teams understand user context behind every requirement
• Business stakeholders champion user needs within the context of business goals
• Customer success teams leverage research insights within their retention strategies
• Marketing teams build campaigns on proprietary data and case studies

Excellence emerges through continuous improvement, so I establish frameworks to make UX quality measurable, visible, and accountable for business outcomes.

Quality measurement infrastructure:

• Establish usability testing programs to provide pre-project context and data on proposed solutions
• Create UX metrics frameworks that connect user experience quality to business success indicators
• Ensure designers capture and share baseline stats to measure progress toward defined goals post-release
• Build quality assessment processes that identify improvement opportunities before they impact customer satisfaction

I create cultures that proactively enhance user satisfaction while driving business results by

• Taking advantage of opportunistic improvement during feature development to pay down UX debt or make incremental improvements
• Analyzing data and user feedback to identify opportunities to improve the experience
• Prioritizing improvements that balances user delight with business impact
• Using continuous feedback loops to rapidly correct course