INTRODUCTION
As a design leader at SmartNews, SiriusXM, and Pandora, I’ve built diverse, distributed teams of skilled professionals to create innovative, user-centric products. As a practitioner, I have a proven track record of delivering successful products from zero-to-one and taking alpha interfaces to indispensable ones, including moving QuickBooks mobile from a two to a four-star app, inventing Artist Audio Messages, and spearheading almost a decade of tooling for artists and the music industry with Pandora AMP.
My collaborative approach involves working closely with technologists and product partners while prioritizing the end-user. I deeply believe in building cool stuff and delivering value to our customers. I’m passionate about leading teams that deliver impactful results.
SELECTED EXPERIENCE
Cburg.me / Principal Artist
JANUARY 2023 – CURRENT
Lead team of designers in Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York responsible for designing products and features for the US Edition of SmartNews. The team was also responsible for creating the company’s first global design system, as well as providing product operations support. During my eight month tenure, I worked to update the design review process, created the first design focused career matrix, and chaired round tables to understand team needs and make steps to nurture the team.
SmartNews / Director of US Design, Global Operations and Foundations
MAY 2022 – JANUARY 2023, REMOTE TEAMS – SF, NYC, TOKYO
Lead team of designers in Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York responsible for designing products and features for the US Edition of SmartNews. The team was also responsible for creating the company’s first global design system, as well as providing product operations support. During my eight month tenure, I worked to update the design review process, created the first design focused career matrix, and chaired round tables to understand team needs and make steps to nurture the team.
SiriusXM / Director of Product Design
APRIL 2018 -JANUARY 2022, DISTRIBUTED TEAMS – OAKLAND, NYC, ATLANTA
Built and led two teams focusing on Advertising Tooling and Music Curation & Industry across SiriusXM and Pandora properties. These teams were responsible for all of the interfaces that brought music and talk content to the platform, as well as powering Pandora’s monetization engine. On my planned departure two leaders were already identified, roadmaps agreed upon, and hiring plans approved.
Pandora / Product Design Manager
MARCH 2015 – APRIL 2018, OAKLAND, CA
(2017-2018) Lead designers focused on: social sharing, music discovery and music industry tooling. The designers worked with engineering, recommendation science, and industry relations to release a revamped “Browse” experience in the application, incorporating new visual and interactive experiences, providing more opportunities for algorithmic recommendations and human created modules to drive engagement and discovery. Responsible for Podcast release across iOS, Android, Web, and devices.
(2015 – 2017 ) Managed a team of designers to bring the Pandora Artist Marketing Platform (AMP) from Alpha to full fledged product. Worked with industry relations, engineering, artist marketing, and others to revamp the product to better reflect how artists and the industry think about promotion, album release, tour, and marketing. Added features to enable artists to create playlists, promote single releases, send targeted shout outs to fans when touring.
Pandora / Senior UX Designer
FEBRUARY 2013 – MARCH 2015, OAKLAND, CA
Designed and partnered to release the first Pandora iPad and Android tablet experiences. Lead designer for the zero to one release of Pandora Artist Marketing Platform (AMP). Inventor of Artist Audio Messaging, the first streaming radio self-promotion tool for artists to connect with their fans.
Intuit / Senior Interaction Designer
JANUARY 2011 – FEBRUARY 2013, MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
Lead interaction designer on QuickBooks Mobile creating iOS and Android applications that make life better for small business owners. Collaborated with Product Management, Engineering, UX Research, and other Designers to bring iOS app star rating 2.5 to 4 star rating in just over one year.
How am I Doing?
I've had several colleagues ask me about the job market for those of us who are looking for work. Here's my take, but I'd also love to hear from others. The tech industry is always changing, and recent layoffs have made the job market more competitive. However, in the...