Introduction
With almost 20 years of experience in product design, I have led diverse and distributed teams to create innovative and user-centric products for content creation, consumption, community, and sharing. I have a passion for building new products from scratch and transforming existing ones into indispensable and delightful experiences for users and customers.
Most recently, I was the Director of US Design, Operations & Foundation at SmartNews, where I led a team of designers in Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York responsible for designing products and features for the US edition of the news app. I also spearheaded the creation of the company’s first global design system and provided product operations support. Previously, I built and led two teams at SiriusXM and Pandora, focusing on advertising tooling and music curation and industry, leveraging AI and data to power the monetization and personalization of the platform. As a practitioner, I have delivered successful products such as QuickBooks mobile, Artist Audio Messages, and Pandora AMP, using user research, UX, UI, and design systems skills. I also have a unique credential as an AI artist, creating generative art using machine learning and computer vision techniques.
I am a collaborative and inclusive leader, who works closely with technologists, product partners, and stakeholders, while prioritizing the end-user. I deeply believe we all want to build cool stuff and deliver value to our customers. I am looking for opportunities to lead teams that deliver impactful results in the content creation and sharing domain, where I can apply my expertise and creativity.
Professional Values
Catalyzing Great Teams
- Building successful individuals through mentorship
- Working through the hard stuff to encourage collaboration and positive working relationships
- Partnering across teams to drive decisions and successful outcomes
Creating Wonderful Experiences
- Create interfaces, products, features that solve jobs-to-be done, delighting end consumers
- Create systems and structures that streamline work for the team – making work a joy
Designing from Insights
- Coach designers to understand how to use research, analytics and company goals/KPIs to drive decisions
- Encourage experimentation and learning
Selected Work
Designing a Design Organization
Experience as a leader updating organizational structure, creating a hiring plan, and creating efficient operational structures. This work powered a design team to operate at its peak, supporting a multi-functional organization across a large organization.
Artist Audio Messages
Artist Audio Messages (AAMs) are a feature of the Artist Marking Platform (AMP) at Pandora Radio. AAMs are a way for an artist to connect with their fans by recording a message that can be attached to a specific song, or station. AAMs tell a story, share concert/tour dates, etc with the most enaged fans on the platform. They have been a successful tool for Artists as well as Pandora to reach streaming listeners in their ears.
Podcast Launch
Pandora made a big bet to go into Podcast distribution. My team and I were asked to lead the product design efforts, figuring out how talk content could live within a historically music driven app. This study illustrates how the team broke out the work, partnering with engineering, product mangement, research, science and others to deliver new funtionality to many millions of listeners.
Case Study Link Coming Soon