Leadership
Raising the ceiling on what a team can attempt.
I have led design teams and I have led as a principal individual contributor, and I have never stopped doing the work in either mode. Managing designers taught me that the fastest way to raise a team's ceiling is to set the standard on the hardest surface yourself, then make that standard reproducible as a system, a critique habit, and a shared vocabulary with engineering.
Where I have led
I have led design at six companies. At Chegg, Realtor.com, Asurion, and BlackBerry I led designers directly, teams of five to twelve, and stayed in the work the whole time rather than moving into pure management. At Envoy and Interpres I led as a principal individual contributor. The two most recent have full case studies attached, so those claims are checkable.
Interpres Security
Pre-seed, about 15 people. The only designer, partnered directly with the CTO, Head of Product, and five engineers. Owned the audit, the design system, the accessibility standard, and the 0 to 1 AI assistant.
Envoy
Enterprise, multi-location accounts across web and mobile. Led the change from one-way emergency broadcast to a state-driven coordination platform, and led two connected compliance governance initiatives.
Leading design teams
Four roles where I managed designers while staying hands-on in the work, most recent first. Twenty-nine designers across the four. Happy to walk through any of them.
BlackBerry
Asurion
Realtor.com
Chegg
Additional product work at Amazon, Cisco, and Citrix, plus early-stage startups.
How I lead through the work
Set the standard on the hardest surface
I take the ambiguous, highest-risk surface myself first, the one where nobody can yet describe what good looks like, and ship a real artifact that defines the bar. Then the team has something to argue with instead of a brief.
Make the standard reproducible
Craft that lives in one designer's head doesn't scale. I convert decisions into design systems, documented patterns, and named states, including the unglamorous ones: empty, uncertain, degraded, refused.
Close the gap with engineering
I prototype in code with Claude and Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT, and Figma Make so handoff is a conversation about behavior, not a spec review. Engineers get intent they can read; design gets feasibility early enough to matter.
Argue in outcomes, not taste
I frame design decisions in the terms the business already uses: time-to-insight, trust, adoption, deal risk. That's how design earns a seat in strategy rather than a review slot at the end.
What I hold myself to
The four principles above are how I lead through the work. These are what I practised while managing designers, what I look for in the leaders I want to work with, and what I hold myself to.
Self-awareness
A genuine desire to learn and grow, professionally and personally. The people worth following are still changing their minds about things.
Composure
Control over their own emotions, and the ability to mediate conflict between others rather than absorb it or escalate it.
Compassion
A constructive drive to help other people grow and succeed, which is different from being nice to them.
Culture
A desire to build healthy teams and treat everyone with respect, including the people it would be easy not to.
Dependability
Reliable, and open and honest in communication. Predictable in the ways that let other people plan.
Courage
The courage to champion other people, and the conviction to champion a mission when it is unpopular.
Perspective
The ability to see the whole picture, prioritize the goals that matter, and set conditions where everyone can succeed.
Delivery
The skill to keep the plates spinning and deliver on time, without burning out the team to do it.