Resume

Summary

UX and Product Design leader with more than 20 years of experience shaping teams and products that connect thoughtful design with measurable business impact. Recognized for building design organizations from the ground up, mentoring multidisciplinary teams, and cultivating a culture of inclusivity, curiosity, and purposeful design. Skilled across all stages of the product lifecycle, including research, strategy, design systems, and delivery, while collaborating with product and engineering leaders to align vision, execution, and user experience. MBA-trained with deep expertise in both B2B and B2C SaaS environments, combining strategic insight, empathy, and creativity to improve products and the teams behind them. 

Core Competencies

User Experience Strategy | Design Leadership | Product Design | Design Systems | Cross-Functional Collaboration | Team Development & Mentorship | UX Research & Insights | Accessibility & Inclusive Design | Agile Product Development | Strategic Vision & Execution

Professional Experience

Learning A-Z, Remote                                                 April 2021 – October 2025

Manager, UX/UI

• Built and led a multidisciplinary design organization of UX Designers, Visual Designers, UX Writers, and UX Researchers, cultivating a collaborative culture that improved design quality and delivery speed across products.

• Established a company-wide Design System that unified visual language, accessibility standards, and Figma libraries, reducing design and engineering time while reinforcing brand consistency.

• Teamed with Product and Engineering leadership to integrate UX strategy into the development process, improving alignment, collaboration, and delivery accuracy across teams.

• Guided the redesign of the e-commerce and login experiences, improving clarity and flow, and contributing to a 17% increase in purchase completion.

• Redesigned the logged-in homepage to create a personalized, task-focused experience that increased engagement and supported a 25% lift in trial-to-paid conversions.

• Simplified the rostering process for district administrators, cutting setup time from 17 days to 3 and significantly reducing support requests through intuitive interface improvements.

• Championed accessibility and inclusive design practices that aligned all digital products with WCAG 2.1 standards, expanding usability for a diverse audience of educators and learners.

• Mentored and coached designers at all levels, introducing structured onboarding and performance programs that accelerated growth and bolstered alignment with company objectives.

Principal UX Designer

• Led an enterprise-wide information architecture and navigation redesign, modernizing the product experience to improve usability and help users find content more intuitively.

• Partnered with Product Management, Engineering, and business stakeholders to translate strategy and research insights into clear, actionable design solutions.

• Designed and conducted user research and usability studies, transforming findings into informed design decisions that shaped the product roadmap.

• Created wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity visuals that defined interaction models and guided engineering implementation across multiple product lines.

  
  

Paciolan, Irvine, CA                                                       January 2019 – April 2021

Senior UX Designer

• Served as UX lead across multiple B2B and B2C product teams, shaping user experience strategy and ensuring consistency throughout the SaaS ecosystem.

• Teamed with engineering to design a YAML-based themed React component library, improving collaboration and accelerating feature development.

• Directed UX for data visualization initiatives, collaborating with data engineers to translate complex analytics into intuitive, actionable insights through Looker and Jasper.

• Conducted card sorting, tree testing, and usability studies to evaluate navigation and content structure, delivering design recommendations that improved overall usability.

• Contributed to the creation of a unified Design System, aligning teams around shared components and standards that streamlined design-to-development workflows.

  
  

Avery Products, Brea, CA                                 September 2016 – January 2019

Senior UX Designer

• Liaised with stakeholders to review new feature development and address usability concerns, ensuring product decisions reflected both user needs and business priorities.

• Created and optimized a Sketch component library that streamlined the design process and maintained visual consistency across multiple digital products.

• Defined design and business requirements in detailed user stories, collaborated on backlog grooming, and helped determine development priorities.

• Conducted iterative user testing to validate design choices and improve release quality, allowing for continuous optimization of features and user flows.

• Worked with cross-functional teams to drive design decisions with broader product strategy, reinforcing a consistent and intuitive user experience throughout the platform.

  
  

RevolutionCredit, Irvine, CA                                               May 2015 – July 2016

Lead UX/UI Designer (HCi)

• Designed and prototyped digital experiences for educational financial products that improved user understanding and engagement.

• Engaged with product and engineering teams to refine key features, resulting in stronger conversion rates and a more intuitive interface.

• Developed and implemented processes and design tools that enhanced team efficiency and collaborative efforts.

• Created and managed visual assets and interaction models that supported consistent design execution across web and mobile platforms.

  
  

Experian Consumer Direct (via Kaygen), Costa Mesa, CA       May 2013 – May 2015

Senior Designer

• Created sitemaps and user flows that clarified complex processes for stakeholders and improved design alignment across teams.

• Developed a custom project management system for the Traffic Manager using Excel, VBA, and macros, streamlining internal workflows and increasing visibility into project progress.

  
  

MIND Research Institute, Irvine, CA                      March 2008 – January 2013

Lead Interaction Designer (IxD) / Interaction Product Manager / Senior UI Designer

• Pioneered the creation of a department focused on user experience, establishing standards and processes that defined how products were researched, designed, and tested.

• Conducted on-site usability testing to guarantee interactions were intuitive and aligned with learning objectives.

• Collaborated with engineers to integrate user insights into product design and functionality.

• Developed and maintained design and business requirement documentation to support consistency across software modules.

• Coordinated alignment across five departments for new software initiatives by producing mockups, identifying stakeholders, and facilitating review sessions.

• Served as lead interaction designer for the patented Systems and Methods Incorporating Animated Widgets in a Virtual Learning Environment.

Education

• Masters of Business Administration Southern New Hampshire University | Manchester, NH

• Bachelor of Fine Arts, F/TV emphasis in New Media (Web Design, Interactive Design, and 2D Animation) Chapman University | Orange, CA