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.