Design Leadership
This is how I lead.
Beyond shipping product, I care a lot about building teams where designers do the best work of their careers.
The short version: great work comes from teams where people feel safe sharing rough ideas, pushing back on each other, and being honest about what's not working. I've seen it over and over. When that trust is there, the craft follows.
Across TrussWorks, Drata, and Savvy Wealth, I've built coaching frameworks, skills matrices, and design systems. But the thing I'm most proud of is the people who've grown through them.
How I lead
Growth is a conversation
I don't ask designers to level themselves in a doc. We sit down together, figure out where they are, where they want to go, and what skills will get them there. The best performance conversations feel like you're making a plan together.
Leading by doing
I do → We do → You do. I'll demonstrate something in real work first, then we do it together, then you own it. That's how the Canvas blocks and the design hub happened. I built the workflow myself before asking the team to adopt it.
Building systems that scale
I build lightweight structures so designers don't have to reinvent the wheel every time: skills matrices, coaching frameworks, design principles, decision tools, design systems. The goal is to make the right thing the easy thing.
Evolving design for the AI era
The role of design is changing fast. AI tools are reshaping how products get built, and I think it's on design leaders to figure out what that actually means for their teams.
I've been spending a lot of time experimenting with how these tools change the way design, product, and engineering collaborate. Some of it has worked really well. Here's what that looks like in practice.
What this looks like in practice
- Built an AI prototyping workflow where designers ship production code using Claude Code and Cursor
- Created a modular block system for AI-generated content rendering (Canvas blocks)
- Built a design team onboarding hub documenting the new process, prompt library, and decision frameworks
- Introducing experimentation practices and teaching design thinking across EPD teams
Impact
Team Growth
- Helped designers grow into senior and lead roles
- Brought structured growth frameworks to every team I've managed
Product Delivery
- Tightened the loop between design, product, and engineering
- Got teams prototyping and shipping faster through experimentation
Design Systems
- Built and maintained shared component libraries and patterns across orgs
Resources
A few things I've built that I'm happy to share:
AI Design Learning Guide
A walkthrough for helping design teams get up to speed on AI tooling and new ways of working.