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Product Design
Pioneering AI-driven product experiences where design is the connective tissue.
My career has been shaped by a single driving question: how do we create digital experiences that truly serve people? This journey has taken me from the precision of frame-by-frame storytelling to the high-stakes energy of live production, and eventually into Fortune 500 boardrooms, always at the intersection of storytelling, business, design, and technology.
The Beginning
Film & Motion Design
I began my career as a motion and graphic designer in analog and digital production. This foundation in visual storytelling taught me that design isn't just about aesthetics, it's about communicating ideas and evoking emotions. Those early lessons in narrative structure and visual communication continue to inform my approach to digital product design today.
IBM
Founding Creative Director
At IBM, I established my creative leadership in web design and customer experience strategy. As one of the founding creative directors in IBM's Chicago studio, I helped build a design practice from the ground up, defining processes, mentoring talent, and delivering enterprise solutions at scale. This experience taught me how to navigate complex organizational structures while maintaining creative excellence.
Education
Institute of Design & IIT
I hold a Master of Science in Communication from Illinois Institute of Technology and a Master of Design Methods from the Institute of Design (ID). ID's rigorous approach to human-centered design and systems thinking fundamentally shaped my practice. I later returned as an adjunct professor, teaching the next generation of designers how to tackle complex problems through structured innovation methods.
Microsoft
Expression Studio Suite
Ready to apply my skills as a systems thinker and design advocate, I joined Microsoft to work on Expression Studio Suite, a competitor to Adobe Creative Suite tailored for UX designers. I built the design ecosystem for the UX community and helped Microsoft customers ship products using Microsoft's emerging technology and design platforms. This role provided valuable experience in business development, collaborating with Silicon Valley startups and companies across consumer and enterprise domains. It further honed my storytelling skills, creating presentations and events for organizations including SXSW, IxDA, SCAD, SAIC, Kellogg, HBR, TedX, and Service Design Week.
Truth Labs
Design Studio Leadership
As the leader of Truth Labs' Chicago design studio, I took on the challenge of running a design consultancy, balancing creative vision with business realities. Under my leadership, we doubled revenues while maintaining the quality and craft that defined the studio's reputation. Working across diverse clients and industries expanded my ability to adapt design thinking to any context.
CDK Global
Head of Design
As Head of Design at CDK Global, I elevated design's impact at the executive level. Working within a complex enterprise environment serving the automotive industry, I built design systems, established research practices, and championed user-centered approaches in a traditionally technology-driven organization. This role reinforced my belief that design leadership is as much about organizational change as it is about craft.
Adobe
AI Systems Architecture
At Adobe, I lead design for Customer Journey Management within the Adobe Experience Cloud portfolio, one of the most advanced AI-orchestrated product surfaces in digital marketing and enterprise software. My focus has expanded from product and systems design to pioneering a new model of design leadership: using AI to build AI-driven experiences, while keeping design thinking as the connective tissue that makes those systems human, coherent, and trustworthy at scale.
