Leadership Style:
I lead with passion, purpose, and a bias towards action adapting to the unique needs of the businesses, teams, and individuals I support. My focus is on providing clear direction, demonstrating empathy, fostering psychological safety and clarity, inspiring others, equipping people with the tools and resources they need to succeed, and expecting quality performance.
Team Leadership:
Leading Cross-Functional Teams
I have extensive experience building and leading cross-functional teams. Some highlights include:
Worked closely with product and delivery leaders to define roadmap direction and strategy for new products and services
Partnered with marketing, product, advanced analytics, and IT teams to establish customer personalization parameters for an optimization engine
Helped bridge communication and collaboration between marketing, product, and the SalesForce team around the digital communications flows for the launch of a new health platform
Formed many core project teams consisting of 3-20+ contributors from 2-10+ business units
I excel at ensuring all team members understand their roles, how they contribute to the broader vision, and how to communicate and collaborate effectively to achieve our shared and individual goals.
Instruction and Mentorship
I co-taught multiple cohorts of aspiring UX/UI students at General Assembly providing instruction, feedback, and career guidance.
At Manulife/John Hancock I managed a senior UX designer based in Hong Kong overseeing Individual Development Plans (IDPs), mid-year and year-end reviews, and career planning. Additionally, I mentored junior designers within the Canadian segment, fostering their professional growth and enhancing their design capabilities.
Beyond UX practitoners, I provided strategic guidance to colleagues across multiple segments and business units to:
Strengthen their understanding of Human-Centered Design (HCD)
Advise on the integration of HCD methodologies into their workflows
Promote effective collaboration with HCD teams and practitioners
Corporate Leadership:
Ability ERG
In 2022, I was appointed Co-chair of the newly established Ability Employee Resource Group (ERG) to provide leadership and strategic direction. In this role, I was responsible for building and leading a team of volunteers dedicated to raising awareness among our North American colleagues about individuals with visible and invisible disabilities. Some of my accomplishments:
Developed the org structure and built a team of 25+ committed volunteers including interviewing and onboarding
Developed roles and responsibilities, procedures, processes, artifacts, and templates
Composed a strategic plan each year and created, tracked, and reported on our OKRs and metrics
Oversaw operations and created our schedule of events and initiatives
Global DEI told us that our ERG created the “Gold Standard” for how ERGs should operate and in 2024 our practices were included in DEI’s ERG Playbook which all other ERGs were asked to follow.
Global Accessibility Progam
In 2024, I was appointed to lead a cross-functional working group across our US, Canada, and Global segments tasked with developing a proposal for the Global Executive Leadership Team. The objective was to outline a strategic plan for establishing a Global Accessibility Program, along with actionable initiatives for 2024 and 2025. I guided a team of eight colleagues across seven business units through a series of ideation, prioritization, and planning sessions, leveraging our collective expertise to craft a comprehensive proposal deck.