I am a cheerleader for my team and organization. As a manager and leader, I like to figure out what my team members do best and create situations where they can shine—and where they can learn and grow. When things get complicated or challenging, I am empathetic and acknowledge difficulty, but then work with my team to find a path forward. I'm not afraid to give tough feedback or navigate gnarly situations. I can find the silver lining in any cloud. I find great joy in identifying emergent leaders and helping them cultivate the skills they need to become effective managers and leaders themselves.

I take my work really seriously and always think about what’s best for our customers, business, organization and product development team. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t joke around, do craft projects and otherwise enjoy the time we spend working together. I thrive when my team is happy and productive.

TL;DR I am a (non-annoying) team cheerleader.

Early in my career, I had an experience that I’ll never forget. My company was kicking off an intranet project for a client who wanted to increase knowledge transfer and communication within their organization.

The main stakeholder came to our office for a meeting. En route to the conference room, we walked through our office’s lunch room. The client said “Wow, a lunch room, that's great!” And, at that moment, I wondered if instead of building an intranet, we should recommend that our client build a lunch room to foster casual interdepartmental communication.

We actually built an intranet, but the thought stuck with me. While I love (and specialize in) designing digital experiences, I’m the first to recommend simple solves that are low in scope, non-technical or unconventional. I LOVE that type of thing. If a note printed on a packing slip has the same impact on customer contact rates as an eng-intensive, technical solution...let’s do the former, right?

TL;DR Problem definition is an important part of my design process. That + thinking creatively can lead to unconventional solutions.

In graduate school I learned about Operation Cat Drop, a (questionably truthful) story about the World Health Organization’s use of DDT to combat malaria in Borneo in the 1950s, which led to an ecosystem collapse.

The pesticide did its job by killing mosquitos and reducing malaria, but “...the insects that died from being poisoned by DDT were eaten by gecko lizards, which were then eaten by cats. The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by outbreaks of two new serious diseases carried by the rats, sylvatic plague and typhus. To cope with these problems, which it had itself created, the World Health Organization had to parachute live cats into Borneo.” (source, emphasis mine)

There have been a few times in my career where seemingly simple solutions have escalated into a “parachuting cat” situation. Those are bad. So, I serve as an advocate for systems thinking, and love anticipating (and reacting to) the downstream-effects of seemingly simple changes.

TL;DR Any change to a system can have unintended consequences (parachuting cats!), so I like to think holistically.

I majored in Studio Art in college, and as a result I truly enjoy finding ways to express and communicate ideas. I genuinely love: writing one-pagers to pitch a new product or org design idea, creating video visiontypes, making presentations to communicate a strategic shift...basically, I like to make stuff. And I hope to write a book someday!

Outside of work, I like spending time away from screens and making things with my hands. I like to paint, draw, collage, make piñatas, etc. I flexed my interior design muscles when my husband and I remodeled our home in 2021, and I had the opportunity to design the entryway art installation at Granular’s new SF office in early 2022. I turn my house into a giant skull for Halloween and have found a new hobby: building completely custom dollhouses for my friend’s daughters (one of which which went a bit viral on Instagram!).

TL;DR Slides and docs are my happy place, and I’m always down to craft or paint or make something.