Great design doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s the result of people, collaboration, and shared vision. My leadership is rooted in seeing people, believing in their potential, and creating the space for them to do their best work. I remove roadblocks, champion teams, and ensure design has the clarity, support, and influence it needs to thrive.
I believe in leading from behind, giving teams the autonomy and trust to drive great work. But I also know that sometimes an organization needs a leader to step forward, to set a vision, advocate for design, and create alignment across teams and executives. Great leadership is knowing when to step back and when to step forward.
At the executive level, I partner closely with product, engineering, and business leaders to define vision, align on strategy, and ensure design plays a critical role in shaping the future of the company. At the team level, I work alongside design, research, and content leaders to translate strategy into execution, ensuring teams have the structure, tools, and space to deliver world class experiences.
Great design organizations aren’t just about design. They’re about partnerships. Success comes from deeply understanding the business, the technology, the users, and the teams building the product. I invest in building strong relationships across product, engineering, and leadership to ensure alignment and clarity at every level.
Listening is just as critical as leading. I take the time to understand the organizational landscape, team dynamics, and company strategy. I believe it is important to understand context, because when teams have a shared understanding of their goals and challenges, they work together more effectively. I also believe in learning through action, because it is important to move forward and seek to continuously learn together as a team.
A critical part of this is creating shared language across disciplines. Design, product, and engineering each bring unique perspectives, but great collaboration happens when teams can align on principles, priorities, and vision. I help teams build that shared foundation, ensuring that design is not just a function within the company, but a force that shapes how the company thinks and operates.
I believe great design teams operate at two speeds:
1. Continuous Improvement – Every experience can be refined, elevated, and made better. Design should always be looking for places to reduce friction, improve usability, and bring more clarity and delight to everyday interactions.
2. Future Vision – Design is also about imagining what’s next. It’s about seeing opportunities that don’t yet exist and bringing them to life. Whether that means defining a new product vision, exploring emerging technology, or rethinking a fundamental experience from the ground up.
The best design organizations do both at the same time. They execute with precision today while setting the foundation for where they need to be tomorrow.
I see strategy and execution as inherently connected. A strong design function helps define what needs to be built while also ensuring the craft, discipline, and operational strength to execute at a high level.
At the strategy level, I work with executives to align design with business objectives, product vision, and market opportunities. I help leadership teams understand how design can be a competitive advantage and ensure that design is shaping, not just responding to, the company’s direction.
At the execution level, I work with design and product teams to translate strategy into reality. That means ensuring teams have:
• Clear design principles and decision-making frameworks
• Scalable systems and tools (like design systems and ops frameworks)
• A strong culture of collaboration, experimentation, and iteration
The best teams don’t just have ideas, they have the discipline and systems to bring those ideas to life. My goal as a leader is to create the space, structure, and momentum for that to happen.
Scaling design is not just about hiring more designers. It’s about building the right team, structure, and culture to support the company’s goals. As companies grow, the needs of the design organization shift, and I specialize in designing teams that evolve with the business.
I’ve built and scaled design teams from startups to enterprise. At Workday, I helped grow the team from 20 to 200, introducing new disciplines like content design, research, and design ops to support our expanding product suite.
I focus on:
• Org Design – Structuring teams to balance product, platform, and service design needs
• Career Growth – Establishing career frameworks to support designers, researchers and writers at every level
• Design Systems & Ops – Building foundations that scale, from design systems to cross-functional collaboration models
• Culture & Community – Creating an environment where designers feel supported, valued, and empowered to do their best work
A well-designed organization allows design to operate at its highest potential, enabling teams to execute with clarity, speed, and impact.
Design leadership is about more than managing teams. It’s about creating the right conditions for great work to happen. It’s about trust, clarity, and momentum.
When teams feel seen, supported, and empowered, they create experiences that feel effortless and impactful. My focus is always on the people, the partnerships, and the process, because when those things are strong, great design follows.