Resume 

Director, Experience Design

Accomplished design leader with extensive experience directing UX teams, developing experience design leaders, implementing UX practices, and enabling success through design thinking.

Rich background in developing creative strategies and implementing design solutions. Demonstrated excellence in managing the design team's operations, ensuring design excellence, and defining the design team's craft and priorities. A strategic leader focused on developing and enabling experience design practitioners and leaders and building teams. Capable of managing multiple design projects/activities to achieve business deals and maximize business growth. Credible history of structuring design-specific onboarding, ensuring readiness for projects, providing leadership for managers, and improving existing design programs. Strong design leadership, strategy skills, and ability to collaborate and guide design teams.

Accomplishments

  • Collaborated with leaders across XD to build new programs/processes and facilitate design team in process improvements, enablement, onboarding, retention, and skills and industry expertise development.

  • Directed design team to create modernized and reimagined applications/tools for planning/programming, asset management, information and knowledge management, and case management.

  • Shaped the User Experience graduate degree Industry Challenge curriculum, program, and learning integration of all the various concepts explored throughout the program at MICA.

Director, Designer Excellence, Salesforce, Virginia

February 2021 - Present

Identify and implement design programs and operations improvements, including design audits and effective user experience practices. Liaise between members of cross-functional teams, including design managers, designers, engineers, and business leaders globally.

  • Spearheaded Designer Excellence to cultivate and strengthen Experience Design (XD) practitioners globally.

  • Designer Leader on Muti-Cloud Enterprise projects, including research, workshops, and client alignment.

  • Structured design-specific onboarding, ensured project readiness, and provided managers leadership.

  • Led development of junior design talent program and intern program as well as M&A integration and enablement for designers; conducted skills 360 assessments and championed practice development initiatives.

UX Practice Director, Acumen Solutions, Virginia

January 2020 — February 2021

Spearheaded UX Practice within the organization to provide full complement UX activities/methodologies for Salesforce implementations and custom development. Led the UX Practice, including collaborating with accounts on sales pitches and proposals, participating in selling UX, and building UX Practice. Elevated customer experiences by strengthening the UX team to achieve business needs.

  • Headed UX in Global Services organization charged with evolving the UX Domain into a standalone UX Practice and furthering Acumen Solutions' adoption of UCD best practices in sales and delivery.

  • Maximized team growth from six UX practitioners to 30 inside of 1.5 years to increase productivity and focus on product implementations for Salesforce.

Adjunct Professor UX, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Maryland

January 2016 — October 2022

Facilitated students by delivering lectures on the graduate program course "The Industry Challenge." Supported students' teams by providing access to the professional world to improve teamwork and collaborative processes.

  • Engaged industry partners and conducted students’ assessments by presenting students with challenges faced by professionals in the UX industry.

  • Successfully hired students from the program and introduced former colleagues to teach the program.

  • Served as a professor for the program for six years; contributed to shaping the program and brought other teachers as the cohorts grew.

Experience Design Leader | Specialist Leader, Deloitte Digital, Virginia

February 2013 — January 2020

Steered efforts in business development leading and driving digital sales and market penetration. Planned and implemented a clear digital and design strategy. Oversaw UX design for digital transformation efforts for web applications for Federal (DoD, Health, Intelligence, Civilian), State, and Commercial clients. Established and built digital teams to create modernized and reimagined applications and tools for planning and programming, asset management, information/knowledge management, and case management.

  • Successfully managed design for digital transformation with products and web applications for Federal (DoD, Health, Intelligence, Civilian), State, and Commercial clients.

  • Headed digital teams by addressing challenges for a variety of users through technology, fulfilling business needs, leading design and extensive user research, and mentoring remarkably talented teams.

  • Led the design of bilingual, culturally relevant ZIKA prevention websites; written up in the Lancet medical journal.

  • Delivered native mobile IOS and Android applications for the State of Texas

  • Developed and led the creation of UX standards and enlarged team by 150 studio practitioners.

  • Ensured optimal experience for end-users through contextual inquiries, card sorting, persona and journey creation, design strategy, feature creation, user testing and validation, prototypes, and information architecture development.

  • Designed for assorted operating systems and different modes of access to include mobile, wearables, kiosks, and desktop.

Additional Experience

Principal Multimedia Developer, BAE Systems, Virginia, September 2003 — February 2013

Senior User Interface Designer, SRA International, Virginia, May 2003 — September 2003

User Interface Designer, SAIC, Virginia, September 2001 — September 2003

Lead Web Design Consultant, PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLC, Virginia, January 2000 — September 2001

Internet Relationship Manager, wommenconnect.com, McLean, January 1999 — January 2000

Marketing Assistant, NEA Member Benefits, Gaithersburg, February 1998 — January 1999

Owner, Our Precious Past, Potomac, 1992 — 2000