TL;DR

I've learned that the best design leaders aren't the ones

with the loudest voices in the room. They're the ones

who help everyone else think more clearly.

Key Outcomes

  • Built eSalon's first UX team from 0 to 3 people; mentored junior researcher to senior role within 18 months.

  • Implemented competency matrix and radar-mapping exercise to visualize skills; cross-trained other managers on the technique.

  • Established recurring rituals (research reels, critiques); grew cross-functional influence and informed roadmap decisions.

  • Presented user research at executive level, shifting organizational priorities around upsells and checkout flows.

My Leadership Philosophy

Earning influence by enabling others to succeed.

I build systems,not just solutions.

When I walked into eSalon, they didn't just need better checkout flows. They needed a way to consistently make design decisions that wouldn't break down the next time priorities shifted. So I built design systems that became the shared language between design and engineering, and established rituals that kept user insights at the center of product discussions, even when I wasn't in the room.

I lead by making the path clearer, not by being the path.

At UC Irvine, I inherited months of stalled design reviews where stakeholders were debating color choices instead of solving workflow problems. Rather than pushing my own vision, I facilitated workshops that helped everyone separate what needed to be built from how it should look.

Suddenly, conversations that had been going in circles started moving forward because people had a framework for productive feedback.

I earn influence through shared understanding.

Early in my career at DIRECTV, I watched too many good ideas die because they couldn't survive the translation between departments. Now, I create executive summaries and user interview highlight reels that help stakeholders empathize with users and see the same things I'm seeing. When teams share insights, design starts shaping product roadmaps instead of just reacting to them.

I build designers

who can build systems.

The junior UX researcher I mentored at eSalon didn't just learn to become an excellent senior UX designer. She also learned to identify the organizational gaps that were preventing research from informing strategy. By the time she moved into a senior role, she was anticipating how her UX work would contribute to systems and business outcomes.

Leadership in Practice

How I turn philosophy into repeatable systems and processes.

Competency matrix &Career Development

When I joined eSalon, promotion conversations felt like guessing games. So I created a competency matrix that mapped skills to career levels, covering everything from craft fundamentals (interaction design, research methods, design systems) to organizational influence (stakeholder communication, cross-functional leadership).

The result? Designers had a roadmap of what "good" looked like at each level, and leadership gained confidence knowing exactly who was ready for a promotion.

Skills Assessment &Team Development

I facilitated structured skills assessments using radar mapping (a Nielsen Norman Design Ops technique) where each team member ranked their competencies. We then built personalized development plans in follow-up sessions: strategic conference attendance at HiWorld, Schema, Config, and Pathfinders covering design systems, accessibility, and UX research, alongside Nielsen Norman courses tailored to individual needs.

Instead of generic professional development, we had strategic skill-building aligned to both individual goals and team needs. When a senior designer left, we already knew who was ready to step up because we'd been developing people strategically.

1:1 Mentorship & Growth Planning

My weekly 1:1s balanced project updates with career development, but mostly they helped me understand my people: their strengths, motivations, and what slowed them down.

At DIRECTV, these conversations revealed siloed skills, so I launched cross-training that made us more flexible and collaborative. At eSalon, 1:1s revealed hidden blockers I could solve upstream with leadership.

I also coached influence skills (how to frame work for executives, navigate cross-functional politics) so good ideas could survive organizational translation.

Feedback Systems &

Cross-Functional Influence

I created repeatable feedback rituals (peer reviews, research showcase reels, cross-functional presentations) that helped designers explain not just what they decided, but why it mattered to the business.

At UC Irvine, this approach broke through months of stalled design progress. At eSalon, research highlight reels helped executives connect user frustration to revenue opportunity, giving design a voice in strategic planning from day one.

Final Thoughts

What drives me is watching teams discover they're capable of more strategic thinking than they realized. When you give people the right frameworks and remove the friction from their processes, they start making decisions that serve users and business goals simultaneously. That's when design stops being a service function and becomes the growth lever it's supposed to be.

The infrastructure I build (the systems, the rituals, the shared vocabulary) all exists to help teams get smarter about the problems they're solving, not just the solutions they're shipping.

Team & Leadership

TL;DR

I've learned that the best design leaders aren't the ones

with the loudest voices in the room. They're the ones

who help everyone else think more clearly.

Key Outcomes

  • Built eSalon's first UX team from 0 to 3 people; mentored junior researcher to senior role within 18 months.

  • Implemented competency matrix and radar-mapping exercise to visualize skills; cross-trained other managers on the technique.

  • Established recurring rituals (research reels, critiques); grew cross-functional influence and informed roadmap decisions.

  • Presented user research at executive level, shifting organizational priorities around upsells and checkout flows.

My Leadership Philosophy

Earning influence by enabling others to succeed.

I build systems,not just solutions.

When I walked into eSalon, they didn't just need better checkout flows. They needed a way to consistently make design decisions that wouldn't break down the next time priorities shifted. So I built design systems that became the shared language between design and engineering, and established rituals that kept user insights at the center of product discussions, even when I wasn't in the room.

I lead by making the path clearer, not by being the path.

At UC Irvine, I inherited months of stalled design reviews where stakeholders were debating color choices instead of solving workflow problems. Rather than pushing my own vision, I facilitated workshops that helped everyone separate what needed to be built from how it should look.

Suddenly, conversations that had been going in circles started moving forward because people had a framework for productive feedback.

I earn influence through

shared understanding.

Early in my career at DIRECTV, I watched too many good ideas die because they couldn't survive the translation between departments. Now, I create executive summaries and user interview highlight reels that help stakeholders empathize with users and see the same things I'm seeing. When teams share insights, design starts shaping product roadmaps instead of just reacting to them.

I build designers

who can build systems.

The junior UX researcher I mentored at eSalon didn't just learn to become an excellent senior UX designer. She also learned to identify the organizational gaps that were preventing research from informing strategy. By the time she moved into a senior role, she was anticipating how her UX work would contribute to systems and business outcomes.

Leadership in Practice

How I turn philosophy into repeatable systems and processes.

Competency matrix &Career Development

When I joined eSalon, promotion conversations felt like guessing games. So I created a competency matrix that mapped skills to career levels, covering everything from craft fundamentals (interaction design, research methods, design systems) to organizational influence (stakeholder communication, cross-functional leadership).

The result? Designers had a roadmap of what "good" looked like at each level, and leadership gained confidence knowing exactly who was ready for a promotion.

Skills Assessment &Team Development

I facilitated structured skills assessments using radar mapping (a Nielsen Norman Design Ops technique) where each team member ranked their competencies. We then built personalized development plans in follow-up sessions: strategic conference attendance at HiWorld, Schema, Config, and Pathfinders covering design systems, accessibility, and UX research, alongside Nielsen Norman courses tailored to individual needs.

Instead of generic professional development, we had strategic skill-building aligned to both individual goals and team needs. When a senior designer left, we already knew who was ready to step up because we'd been developing people strategically.

1:1 Mentorship & Growth Planning

My weekly 1:1s balanced project updates with career development, but mostly they helped me understand my people: their strengths, motivations, and what slowed them down.

At DIRECTV, these conversations revealed siloed skills, so I launched cross-training that made us more flexible and collaborative. At eSalon, 1:1s revealed hidden blockers I could solve upstream with leadership.

I also coached influence skills (how to frame work for executives, navigate cross-functional politics) so good ideas could survive organizational translation.

Feedback Systems &

Cross-Functional Influence

I created repeatable feedback rituals (peer reviews, research showcase reels, cross-functional presentations) that helped designers explain not just what they decided, but why it mattered to the business.

At UC Irvine, this approach broke through months of stalled design progress. At eSalon, research highlight reels helped executives connect user frustration to revenue opportunity, giving design a voice in strategic planning from day one.

Final Thoughts

What drives me is watching teams discover they're capable of more strategic thinking than they realized. When you give people the right frameworks and remove the friction from their processes, they start making decisions that serve users and business goals simultaneously. That's when design stops being a service function and becomes the growth lever it's supposed to be.

The infrastructure I build (the systems, the rituals, the shared vocabulary) all exists to help teams get smarter about the problems they're solving, not just the solutions they're shipping.

Team & Leadership

TL;DR

I've learned that the best design leaders aren't the ones

with the loudest voices in the room. They're the ones

who help everyone else think more clearly.

Key Outcomes

  • Built eSalon's first UX team from 0 to 3 people; mentored junior researcher to senior role within 18 months.

  • Implemented competency matrix and radar-mapping exercise to visualize skills; cross-trained other managers on the technique.

  • Established recurring rituals (research reels, critiques); grew cross-functional influence and informed roadmap decisions.

  • Presented user research at executive level, shifting organizational priorities around upsells and checkout flows.

My Leadership Philosophy

Earning influence by enabling others to succeed.

I build systems,not just solutions.

When I walked into eSalon, they didn't just need better checkout flows. They needed a way to consistently make design decisions that wouldn't break down the next time priorities shifted. So I built design systems that became the shared language between design and engineering, and established rituals that kept user insights at the center of product discussions, even when I wasn't in the room.

I lead by making the path clearer, not by being the path.

At UC Irvine, I inherited months of stalled design reviews where stakeholders were debating color choices instead of solving workflow problems. Rather than pushing my own vision, I facilitated workshops that helped everyone separate what needed to be built from how it should look.

Suddenly, conversations that had been going in circles started moving forward because people had a framework for productive feedback.

I earn influence through

shared understanding.

Early in my career at DIRECTV, I watched too many good ideas die because they couldn't survive the translation between departments. Now, I create executive summaries and user interview highlight reels that help stakeholders empathize with users and see the same things I'm seeing. When teams share insights, design starts shaping product roadmaps instead of just reacting to them.

I build designers

who can build systems.

The junior UX researcher I mentored at eSalon didn't just learn to become an excellent senior UX designer. She also learned to identify the organizational gaps that were preventing research from informing strategy. By the time she moved into a senior role, she was anticipating how her UX work would contribute to systems and business outcomes.

Leadership in Practice

How I turn philosophy into repeatable systems and processes.

Competency matrix &Career Development

When I joined eSalon, promotion conversations felt like guessing games. So I created a competency matrix that mapped skills to career levels, covering everything from craft fundamentals (interaction design, research methods, design systems) to organizational influence (stakeholder communication, cross-functional leadership).

The result? Designers had a roadmap of what "good" looked like at each level, and leadership gained confidence knowing exactly who was ready for a promotion.

Skills Assessment &Team Development

I facilitated structured skills assessments using radar mapping (a Nielsen Norman Design Ops technique) where each team member ranked their competencies. We then built personalized development plans in follow-up sessions: strategic conference attendance at HiWorld, Schema, Config, and Pathfinders covering design systems, accessibility, and UX research, alongside Nielsen Norman courses tailored to individual needs.

Instead of generic professional development, we had strategic skill-building aligned to both individual goals and team needs. When a senior designer left, we already knew who was ready to step up because we'd been developing people strategically.

1:1 Mentorship & Growth Planning

My weekly 1:1s balanced project updates with career development, but mostly they helped me understand my people: their strengths, motivations, and what slowed them down.

At DIRECTV, these conversations revealed siloed skills, so I launched cross-training that made us more flexible and collaborative. At eSalon, 1:1s revealed hidden blockers I could solve upstream with leadership.

I also coached influence skills (how to frame work for executives, navigate cross-functional politics) so good ideas could survive organizational translation.

Feedback Systems &

Cross-Functional Influence

I created repeatable feedback rituals (peer reviews, research showcase reels, cross-functional presentations) that helped designers explain not just what they decided, but why it mattered to the business.

At UC Irvine, this approach broke through months of stalled design progress. At eSalon, research highlight reels helped executives connect user frustration to revenue opportunity, giving design a voice in strategic planning from day one.

Final Thoughts

What drives me is watching teams discover they're capable of more strategic thinking than they realized. When you give people the right frameworks and remove the friction from their processes, they start making decisions that serve users and business goals simultaneously. That's when design stops being a service function and becomes the growth lever it's supposed to be.

The infrastructure I build (the systems, the rituals, the shared vocabulary) all exists to help teams get smarter about the problems they're solving, not just the solutions they're shipping.

Team & Leadership