I'm working with select clients on Product, UX and Research projects. I'm focused on solving interesting problems and working with great people. Learn more about my consulting services.

After 3 years of back-to-back Zoom meetings, I took time off of screens and focused on making things. Some highlights were making our house into a giant skull for Halloween and working on a 1:16 scale dollhouse for my friend’s 6 year old. The dollhouse went a bit viral on Instagram!

As the Vice President of Design at Granular, I was a member of the senior leadership team and led a stellar design & research team as they solved interesting problems for farmers and their trusted advisors. During my nearly 6 years on the team, I focused on:

• building a high-functioning, user-centered design and research practice from 2 individual contributors to a team of 20+ ICs and leaders
• partnering with product management, engineering and data science leaders to build a collaborative product development org and operating model
• developing content, strategy and comms for company all hands, presentations, and other events tailored to diverse audiences ranging from our 450+ person team and to senior executives
• guiding the org through our acquisition and varying levels of integration with our parent company, while preserving our unique identity and culture
• leading our pandemic task force that iteratively redesigned the employee experience during COVID and defined how we’d operate in a hybrid environment

As the Director of User Experience, I led product design efforts that drove conversion and revenue. My work at Minted included:

• moving key metrics through pragmatic yet creative product design (e.g. designing an MVP mobile experience that increased conversion +5x; reducing customer contact rate by 27% YOY; iterating and enhancing a feature that led to an increase in adoption of 16% YOY)
• collaborating with product managers, engineers, merchandisers and executives to define the product strategy and UX for new features/enhancements that balance business requirements with our users’ needs
• developing inspiring and forward-thinking concepts for new, strategic initiatives
• building the UX design and user research practice at Minted

As the Senior Design Lead, I led the design team in the creation of new features, apps and experiences. My work at StumbleUpon included:

• leading my team in the overhaul of the StumbleUpon UI in late 2011, which involved redesigning the information architecture, flows, interactions, and look and feel of our consumer facing products (web, clients and mobile)
• quantitatively and qualitatively analyzing the efficacy of the layout, flow, copy and UI of different features, and devising ways to improve effectiveness and end user experience
• managing a team of designers who delivered web, iOS, Android and Windows8 experiences
• establishing design team principles and growing the team from 2 to 6

I moved to the Bay Area in 2008 to attend California College of the Art's (at the time, brand new) MBA in Design Strategy program. Areas of study included: design strategy, finance, operations, market insights, entrepreneurship, leadership and innovation.

This program transformed the way I think about design and business. It helped me become a better leader, a more strategic thinker and a highly creative problem solver.

As a User Interface Designer at Keymind, I designed and built (HTML/CSS/JS) experiences for primarily goverment clients. My responsibilities included:

• creating accessible, user-friendly interactive experiences for a wide range of end users and clients
• documenting and defining the design process at Keymind
• mentoring team members and fostering collaboration between the technical and creative teams

I started my design career at a small marketing and creative services firm called Ranablue in Montgomery Village, MD. While there I provided marketing and design consultation for a variety of clients and built websites using semantically-correct HTML and CSS-based layouts.

I then was an Online Advocacy Intern at Edelman Public Relations where I designed and built websites, email newsletters and UI design concepts for a range of clients.

Skidmore is a small liberal arts college in upstate New York. I was a Studio Art major and focused on drawing, painting and sculpture. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Art.