A design leader shaped by craft, driven by people
I’ve spent my career evolving alongside design—from hands-on visual work to leading teams and shaping product experiences. Today, I focus on building environments where strong ideas, thoughtful execution, and collaborative teams can thrive.
Experience
Design Consultant
Jan 2023 – Present
Partner with startups, growth-stage companies, and enterprise teams to shape product experience, brand systems, creative operations, and scalable digital experiences.
- Guide founders, C-suite, and product leaders on design strategy, team structure, brand experience, creative operations, and scalable design systems.
- Lead product, UX, brand creative, visual design, and digital experience initiatives across SaaS, fintech, healthcare, eCommerce, and consumer technology.
- Translate user research, business goals, behavioral insight, and performance signals into
clear design strategies and measurable experience improvements. - Build AI-enabled workflows and custom agents to accelerate research synthesis, content exploration, creative production, and experimentation.
- Collaborate with product, engineering, marketing, and leadership teams to create cohesive experiences across product, brand, and customer touchpoints.
Chief Creative & Design Officer, Co-Founder
Magnus Idea LLC
Sep 2020 – Dec 2022
Co-founded a global creative and UX agency delivering brand strategy, product design, campaign direction, and creative operations for Fortune 500 and high-growth clients.
- Led distributed teams across UX, visual design, product strategy, creative direction, research, and digital production.
- Developed scalable design systems, prototypes, visual systems, and digital campaigns across fintech, SaaS, eCommerce, fashion, technology, and biotech.
- Guided clients on design maturity, product vision, brand experience, workflow strategy, and performance-informed design decisions.
Vice President Design
Callisto Media
May 2021 – Jul 2022
Led a 120+ person design organization across visual design, UX, product, research, content,
motion, production, and creative operations.
- Increased design output 300% while reducing costs 70% through team restructuring, workflow redesign, automation, and AI-enabled production practices.
- Reorganized teams into specialized pods, improving ownership, speed, creative quality, and cross-functional alignment.
- Embedded human-centered, research-informed, and data-informed practices across creative, content, and product workflows.
- Partnered with executive leadership to align design strategy with revenue, growth, audience needs, and operational goals.
Vice President Global Design & Creative
Global Image Factory
Jun 2019 – Sep 2020
Directed a global UX, design, research, and creative team delivering digital commerce, campaign, motion, social media, and brand experiences for enterprise clients.
- Established unified standards across UX, visual design, research, and production to improve speed, consistency, and execution quality.
- Developed data-informed design frameworks using analytics, A/B testing, conversion tracking, and user feedback to improve engagement and campaign performance.
- Standardized creative workflows and design systems across distributed teams, reducing redundant effort and improving speed-to-market.
UX Design Director
SoFi · Interim Contract
Feb 2019 – Jun 2019
Led UX, web design, and product experience initiatives during a major fintech expansion phase, supporting new product launches and design system development.
- Rebuilt SoFi’s responsive web design system to improve brand cohesion, design consistency, and design-to-development efficiency.
- Partnered with internal teams and an external agency on homepage redesign, product storytelling, conversion optimization, and user journey improvements.
- Supported the launch of new fintech products, including fractional investing and insurance, while balancing regulatory requirements, behavioral insights, brand trust, and user-centered design.
Head of Design, Digital
Walmart
Aug 2010 – Apr 2018
Led a multidisciplinary digital design team across visual design, UX, product design, front-end execution, lifecycle marketing, eCommerce, and brand experience.
- Directed design for customer-facing digital commerce experiences serving millions of customers across web, mobile, email, grocery, financial services, and campaign ecosystems.
- Rebuilt Walmart’s email and campaign design systems, increasing segmented sends by 7x while improving scalability, production efficiency, consistency, and campaign performance.
- Partnered with research, marketing, product, and engineering to translate customer insights, A/B testing, performance data, and behavioral signals into scalable design decisions.
- Collaborated with engineering on AI-powered personalization and dynamic content systems to create more relevant customer experiences.
- Championed accessibility and inclusive design by embedding ADA-compliant practices across digital teams and customer touchpoints.
- Built a stronger design culture through mentorship, operational clarity, and team leadership, helping raise employee engagement from 47% to 85%.
earlier Experience
- Publicis Groupe — Senior UX Designer, Contract
- Sephora — Senior UX & Visual Designer, Contract
- Gap Inc. — Senior Designer / Art Director, Gap Outlet & Banana Republic Factory Store
- Aquent — Art Director / Senior Designer
- Medion — Art Director
- Bailey Gardiner, Inc. / 62Above — Junior Art Director / Designer
CORE EXPERTISE
Design Leadership: Design Org Scaling, Team Leadership, Mentorship, Creative & Design Operations, Executive Stakeholder Alignment, OKRs
Product, UX & Research:
Product Design, UX Strategy, Interaction Design, User Research, Journey Mapping, Accessibility / WCAG, Data-Informed Design, A/B & Multivariate Testing, Behavioral Insights, Performance Analysis, Vibe CodingCreative & Brand:
Creative Direction, Brand Creative, Visual Design, Brand Systems, Campaign Design, Digital Storytelling, Typography, Composition, Layout Design, Motion & Social CreativeDigital & Systems:
Digital Design, Web Design, Interactive Design, Design Systems, AI-Enabled Workflows, Conversion Optimization, CrossFunctional CollaborationBusiness & Systems:
AI-Enabled Workflows, Design Operations, Conversion Optimization, Design Systems, Cross-Functional Collaboration
Tools & Platforms
Figma, Sketch
Adobe Creative Cloud (print, digital and motion)
Google Analytics
HTML/CSS
ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, Cursor, Custom GPT Agents
Education & Training
Master’s Degree
UX & Product Design
Maryland Institute,
College of Art
Bachelor of Arts in Graphic
& Interactive Design
Portland State University
Executive Leadership
Training & Coaching
Walmart Inc.
Certifications
Claude Code 101:
From Prompt to Product
LinkedIn Learning
Getting Started
with Vibe Coding
LinkedIn Learning
Gen AI for UX Designers
Coursera
OpenAI GPTs: Creating Your Own Custom AI Assistants
Coursera
Figma Teams Stakeholders
and Design Reviews
LinkedIn Learning
Atlassian Agile Project Management Professional Certificate
LinkedIn Learning
Scrum The Basics
LinkedIn Learning
and many more…
VOLUNTEERISM Leadership
AIDS/LifeCycle (9x Cyclist & Team Captain)
Raised $80K+ personally, built and led a corporate team raising $1.5M+ over 5 years.
Created a platform for cross-functional, cross-regional
team-building
Testimonials
