Director of Design with 15+ YEARS of experience leading multi-disciplinary design teams

Experienced design leader with wide expertise in Product Design, Branding, and Marketing across mobile, web and SaaS. Accomplished collaborator with Product Management, Engineering, and Stakeholders. I have led teams that included Product Designers, Visual Designers, Web Designers, Graphic Designers, Copywriters, and Design Managers across Visual Design, Interaction Design, UX Design and UX Research. My strength in leadership comes from many years of experience as a designer myself.

Skills & Competencies

Design Leadership, Design Strategy, Art Direction, Visual Design, Interaction Design, UX Design, Design Reviews, Concepting, Iterative Design, Agile Methodology, Design Process, People Management, Prioritizing, Effective Communication, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Team Management, Mentorship

Experience

Director of UX & Product Design | Giant Eagle, Remote

Sept 2022 – Present

As Director of UX & Product Design, I lead product design across multiple apps & websites with 1M+ users, including the Giant Eagle app & website, GetGo app & website, Market District website and myPerks mobile app. I drive the design process from concept to execution across UX Design, Visual Design, Interaction Design & UX Research. We launched the myPerks app from scratch in less than a year, consolidated two websites into one cohesive web grocery experience, launched a redesign of the Market District site, improved the mobile order experience in our GetGo native app, and integrated our new loyalty program into our Grocery and GetGo app & web products. Our work has led to improved metrics in MAU (Monthly Active Users), a 15% increase in GetGo mobile orders and an elevated brand in the digital space.

• Collaborate with cross-functional leaders in product & engineering to prioritize, plan & track in an agile environment

• Conduct design reviews and manage design sprints across all digital products and initiatives

• Lead a global team of designers and managers across 5 timezones

• Launched a new loyalty rewards app in 9 months, from concept to execution

• Led the design effort to merge our corporate and e-commerce websites into one website

• Guided user research initiatives and testing with usertesting.com to iterate on design concepts

• Improved an KPI metric of MAUs (Monthly Active Users) across all digital products

• Achieved monthly retention of Authenticated Users >70% on average in 2023 for the grocery app

• Implemented accessibility updates across our web products to make us compliant across multiple websites

• Managed design updates that incorporated a content-management system to increase flexibility and efficiency

• Launched Individualized Offers in our Giant Eagle and GetGo apps & websites, leading to $1.5M incremental revenue

• Promoted to Director of UX & Product Design in Jan 2023

Senior Art Director | Giant Eagle & Hatched Labs, Inc., (acquired by Giant Eagle), Remote

April 2021 – Sept 2022

As Senior Art Director on the Product Design team, I was responsible for improving our visual design across the Giant Eagle mobile app & website. I spearheaded a redesign after just a couple of months in my role, pushing to refine our visual design and create consistency, and elevating our brand on the Giant Eagle website. We modernized our site, integrated Giant Eagle branding and updated layout and components to improve usability.

• Art direction for Product Design across iOS, Android, and Web platforms for grocery app & website

• Spearheaded a redesign of the Giant Eagle app and website, modernizing our product and pushing for innovation

• Led design efforts around an improved global header, hero, carousel, reorder, search, and categories

Director of Design | Castlight Health (now apreehealth) & Jiff (acquired in 2017), San Francisco & Oakland, CA

Sept 2016 – Mar 2020

As Director of Design, I led a team of visual designers and copywriters responsible for the creation of custom marketing materials including in-app digital assets, print, web, video & email. I was also a hands-on designer alongside my team. Our designs increased customer registration and engagement with the Castlight Health app. We provided all visual assets for onboarding materials for our B2B2C Enterprise clients including Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, CVS & NetApp. We provided all in-app visual assets for our fitness and leaderboard in-app challenges, email designs, illustrations, motion graphic animations, infographics, and events graphics. I was a design advocate & ambassador across the organization, and established cross-functional processes with Customer Success, Product, and Implementation teams.

• Directed and provided hands-on design for custom branding & marketing across mobile, web, print, video, and email

• Increased daily engagement (>65%) and social inclusiveness (>75%) with the Fitness & Leaderboard challenges

• Managed design processes, 2 large customer migrations & team transition through the Castlight Health acquisition

• Jiff was acquired by Castlight Health in 2017

Designer & Art Director | Freelance, Berkeley, CA

May 2013 – Sept 2016

In between full-time positions, I have worked as a freelance designer with multiple clients, working on web apps, mobile games, websites, SaaS, tabletop, tablet apps, and more. My freelance work has primarily been with Education Technology clients, crafting learning experiences, for both children and teachers.

• Visual Design, Art Direction, UI Design, Brand Design for multiple clients including TIDAL Lab at Northwestern University

• Clients included TIDAL Lab at Northwestern University, Sown To Grow and Redbird Advanced Learning

• Projects included iPad educational app, web app for students & teachers, mobile RPG game

Art Director & Lead Designer | Nickelodeon, Kids & Family Games, San Francisco, CA

June 2007 – Feb 2013

As Art Director, I was both a manager and hands-on designer for the Nick Jr. Boost, Shockwave and AddictingGames products. I led a team of designers creating custom sales and marketing assets including site reskins, custom landing pages, promos, and banner ads. I also led multiple rebrand efforts, including the rebranding of myNoggin into Nick Jr. Boost, and the redesign of the AddictingGames website and mobile app.

• Art direction and hands-on designer for Nick Jr. Boost, Shockwave and AddictingGames websites and apps

• Led the branding initiative that created a Brand Book for Shockwave

• Created the rebrand of myNoggin into Nick Jr. Boost, an educational subscription service for preschool kids

• Managed in-house designers and outside contractors in an agile environment & promoted to Art Director in Jan 2012

Education University of California, Berkeley | Bachelor of Arts, Art & Mass Communication

Software Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch, JIRA, Asana, Amplitude