Leadership Experience
Sr. Manager, Khan Academy (remote)
February 2024 - current
0-1 Product discovery and development for EdTech: Lead a 0-1 greenfield product using LLM in our hero feature.
User advocacy and insights: Integrate and plan end-to-end research programming to articulate user workflows and pain points to prioritize features and roadmap creation.
Demonstrate research impact: Collaborate closely with development triad (e.g. engineering and product) to create short and long-term “right-sized” solutions to integrate research findings.
C-Suite collaboration: Collaborate extensively with and report to C-Suite on North Star vision alignment.
Oversee brand redesign: Steer our visual designer in redefining the Khan Academy visual language and facilitate buy-in from executive leadership.
Design system management: Oversee our federated design system and its design/development processes throughout an organization-wide initiative to be fully accessible.
Design ops: Work closely with the design leadership team to develop our design principles, hiring processes, build a strong (fun and trusting) remote culture, and practices around design critiques.
Design Director, CSL Behring (pharma/healthcare)
Dec 2021 - Feb 2024
Scaling design for healthcare: Built an in-house design team from ground up, including hiring, scaling, and socializing with various teams across the organization; led a team of two people managers, and managed our contingent team resourcing and work roadmap (3-5 designers).
Innovation projects: Strategized closely with a cross-functional team (product management for new technologies, data science, research) to assess generative AI applications, develop software application experiments, and create proof-of-concepts for internal funding.
Craft development: Mentored and advised designers and design managers on research methods and best practices; developed templates, educational materials, and guidelines for various methods.
Facilitate and create design workshops: Developed, led, and facilitated various workshops to align senior leadership (VP+) around major innovation projects.
End-to-end product development: Accountable for the end-to-end user experience for multiple homegrown software offerings, which required both generative and evaluative research to conceptualize, test, and improve its offerings.
Develop technical expertise in data management: Guided generalists in becoming more skilled in designing for increasingly technical spaces (e.g. data visualization, data marketplaces).
Thrive in ambiguity: Encourage and embrace a high level of ambiguity in our innovation environment through more frequent touch points to align on expectations rather than heavy documentation.
Design Manager, H-E-B (grocery ecommerce)
Feb 2021 - Dec 2021
Normalized research in iterative design process: Used a rapid research approach to improve new feature release to increase discoverability and usage (from 11 to 16%).
Research approach helped stakeholders understand the immediate impact of research.
Feature releases for enterprise/internal tooling and ecommerce: Launched a new feature that allows customers to reject unwanted grocery substitutions and surpassed business’ customer engagement goals (30%) to achieve 51% customer engagement.
Matrixed management: Oversaw eight direct reports and ran three scrum teams in a matrixed organization.
Growing the design team: Scaled the number of designers supporting my product squads from four to seven within three months of joining the organization.
Support for associate designers: Developed craft programming for associates (design and research) to help them grow their craft and understand agile methodologies and best practices.
Fostering triad collaboration: Partnered closely with Engineering and Product leadership to foster a collaborative environment in order to build informed roadmaps.
Problem-framing discussions: Led stakeholders new to design-thinking methods through problem-framing working sessions to collaboratively develop product roadmap that reflects both business objectives and customer needs.
Individual Contributor Highlights
UX Designer, Dell (global ecommerce)
A/B testing: Led multi-variate and A/B testing for our global site in a fast-pace, bi-weekly test release environment.
Created a testing variant for account login that lifted authentication process by 43%, increased conversion to sales by 48% and 7% lift in AOV. Variants focused on content and interaction flow.
Increased Japan’s traffic to checkout pages by 3% via progress bar redesign.
Mobile-first design (Windows 8 app version 1.1 and 1.2): Designed Dell’s first platform-agnostic ecommerce application, working closely with engineering and product management to ensure usability across mobile, tablets, and PCs.
Defined site hierarchy elements and interaction for navigation, filter, sort, product detail pages, cart and checkout.
Streamlined cart and checkout process from multiple inconsistent paths to a scalable item to cart pattern.
Released a well-received application that was promoted by Microsoft and consistently remained in the top free downloads for shopping category
UX Lead, USAA (fintech)
Develop new inclusive research protocols for fintech industry: Advocated and created new research protocols to ensure inclusive research approach (e.g. using participatory research, widening recruitment efforts to reflect appropriate demographics).
Redesign of existing product: Designed a new digital experience for our mortgage application process; ensured equity in application process for differing racial groups and advocating for their needs to stakeholders.
User research (interviews and usability testing): Conducted interviews for money movement team to understand how consumers understood various financial terms and protected themselves from unnecessary fees and update designs to reflect user needs.
Form cross-functional relationships: Established new relationships between cross-functional teams such as data science and marketing to build better customer profiles and anticipate customer needs.
Mentorship: Provided design and research oversight/mentorship for three mid-level designers.
UX Lead, argo design (design agency)
Guided clients through design processes, methods, and approaches: Introduced clients to various disciplines in design thinking exercises (e.g. storymapping, mental models, HMW) to ideate collaboratively, challenge previously held assumptions and shift from a solution-oriented approach to a problem-oriented approach.
Research programming: Established research programs with several clients including UnitedRentals, IBM, and McAfee using open card sorts, interviews, contextual inquiry, and usability testing.
Mentorship for Intern and associate designers: Coached and managed interns and junior designers in developing their design presentation style, conduct interviews, and develop recommendations.
Senior Interaction Designer, Fjord/Accenture (design agency)
Selling design and research: Wrote and successfully sold SOW/LOE for clients, including a $1 million engagement with Frost Museum of Science.
Used Google Analytics to identify patterns and trends for user insights and to prioritize content hierarchy, ecommerce flow and site map
Design outcomes: Conducted interviews, created wireframes, facilitated workshops, and presented to VPs and C-Suite on new designs, research findings.
Mentorship and craft guidance: Mentored mid-level and junior designers and organized internal workshops to level up craft.