executive summary
Seasoned UX leader and passionate user advocate with over 20 years of experience in high-growth environments (early stage through $3B+ in revenue) driving user-centered design. A creative and curious dot-connector and design thinker who develops and implements UX design strategies that positively impact users’ experience and the bottom line.
- Design leader with 20+ years of guiding teams through creative problem solving, applying design thinking methodologies and delivering insightful research
- UX designer with 20 years of experience creating designs, specifications, and working with cross-functional partners to build out experiences
- In B2B SaaS companies, 12+ years of focus on customer adoption and retention leveraging qual and quant studies, AB testing and experimentation to optimize user experience
- 20 years of leading cross-functional teams, optimizing design/development processes, and managing agencies; 4 years as a manager of people (up to a team of 7)
- 2 years of managing and advocating for Design Systems and their ability to scale and create a cohesive experience for the business
core competencies
Discovery + Strategy Development: Design thinking workshops and whiteboard sessions, competitive analysis, prioritization and roadmapping workshops, goal and target setting, executive communications
UX Research: Qualitative and quantitative, strategic and tactical. Moderated and unmoderated user testing, user and stakeholder interviews, service blueprinting, data and analytics exploration
UX Design: Information architecture, user flows, journey mapping, service design, wireframing, prototyping, AB testing and experimentation
Design systems: Design, development, prioritization, roadmapping, and team orchestration
Team-building and operations: Building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders and cross-functional teams; hiring, mentoring, employee retention; budget management, vendor onboarding and management
experience
UX Design Director
Splunk | San Francisco, CA | November 2021–January 2024
Led a team of UX designers and researchers responsible for Splunk.com and Splunk’s Design System for Web. Together with our stakeholders and cross-functional partners we deployed UX methodologies for human-centered design that supported user needs. My role was eliminated in a pre-acquisition reorganization.
- Directed/facilitated strategic and tactical user-centered design methodologies such as user research, competitive heuristics, AB tests, qual/quant studies, and design-thinking workshops, for both near-term deliverables and longer-term vision/roadmaps.
- Inspired and mentored 5 UX designers, a Researcher and a DesignOps practitioner to stretch and grow their skills, and champion human-centered design across skillsets, teams, and perspectives.
- Guided a continuous improvement and data-driven design approach that informed decisions and educated stakeholders, then became shared best practices with peers and junior colleagues.
- Launched and maintained the Splunk Design System for Web, building understanding and support for it within Splunk’s marketing organization.
- Crafted repeatable processes that helped the team to scale and deliver high-quality, holistic solutions — key frameworks that aided in the transition to an agile delivery model, delivering incremental value to customers.
- Managed and maintained a UX backlog to address unmet business and user needs.
- Delivered practical solutions and incremental value to stakeholders in a data-driven, fast-paced, agile, real-world environment.
- Managed relationships with vendors, contractors and agencies, including research and onboarding as needed.
Principal UX Designer
Splunk | San Francisco, CA | April 2018–November 2021
Led cross-functional teams through design, development, deployment and ongoing iterations on large-scale strategic projects that strived to drive bottom-line growth and excellent user experience.
- Collaborated and consulted with two different agencies on two site redesigns which addressed shifts in corporate positioning including persona and journey development, wireframing, and UI design.
- Led a cross-functional team to create an Observability hub that repositioned and relaunched Splunk’s Observability offerings, leading to a 7% increase in trial conversions.
- Co-led optimization and experimentation efforts with the growth analytics team which lead to numerous learnings and increased conversion rates on forms by +16%.
- Worked in a cross-functional tiger team to reimagine Splunk.com from the ground up and push innovative approaches into the larger organization. Some of the ideas that were tested and implemented and led to a 27% increase in engagement.
- Developed plans, strategies, and documentation for the optimization of form experiences, development of progressive profiling and personalization across multiple Splunk platforms
Senior Web UX/UI Designer
Splunk | San Francisco, CA | January 2016–April 2018
Brought a focus on personas, user research, and key qual and quant metrics to varied UX design projects.
- Redesigned Splunk’s trial signup forms and flows achieving a 30% increase in form conversions in our first iteration.
- Working cross-functionally to create landing pages for campaigns and corporate initiatives.
- Visual design, image selection, preparation, and publishing of homepage heroes.
Freelance Art Director / Designer
September 1999–2017
- Branding, website and product design, print work for startups, individuals, artists, financial organization, technology leaders, attorneys and schools. Example projects: Brand work including logo development for Pyze, New Relic, and others; Web and environmental design for Okta’s 1,500 person user conference
Creative Director
New Relic | San Francisco, California | October 2008–August 2012
- As an early hire (founded July 2008), I established the brand and visual language, ensuring a user experience that was consistent from first touch through post-signup and the product UI.
- Responsible for the UX, visual design, and content of the website bridging into the SaaS product and started the first pattern-library with the UI development team. Worked on the UX and UI design for the SaaS product.
- Partnered with the engineering team on the sign-up flow and communications process, advocating for best practices in design and user experience. Achieving 18,000 customer accounts over 4 years.
- Managed and created campaigns, visual assets for the website and product, online and print advertising, promotional items, and in-person events.
Creative Services Manager
Wily Technology | Brisbane, California | June 2002–May 2007
- Managed a group of staff, agencies, and freelancers to support a company that tripled in size during my tenure and sold in January 2006 for $375 million.
- Managed the brand and visual design of Wily’s web sites, advertising, marketing tools and campaigns, trade show and event graphics, and external communications materials. Ensuring that the brand experience was consistent across customer touchpoints.
- Contributed to the development of Wily’s core product both as a UI designer including installation screens, iconography, and dashboards.
- Architected, designed and led the development of a web-based product delivery system — transitioning away from DVD distribution
tools
Figma, Mouseflow, Google Analytics, ZeroHeight, Lucidspark, Lucidchart, Usertesting.com, Adobe Suite, Google Workspace
licenses + certifications
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
UX Master Certification, Nielsen Norman Group
education
University of California at Berkeley Extension; Coursework in Graphic Design and Fine Arts
San Francisco State University; Master’s work in Music Performance
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Bachelor’s of Music, Flute Performance