I am currently the VP of Design at SimplePractice, the world's leading electronic health record (EHR) platform for independent health and wellness practitioners. My career spans design leadership roles at industry-leading companies, including Spotify, Intuit, Facebook, and Yahoo, where I have consistently driven innovation at the intersection of design, technology, and business strategy. I also provide strategic advisory services to startups across FinTech and Food Ecosystems.
2023 – Present
SimplePractice empowers private practices to thrive through beautiful, practical, and intuitive business solutions for health and wellness professionals. I joined to establish and champion a design vision that delivers exceptional user experiences while meeting business objectives and product goals. SimplePractice serves over 185,000 practitioners with an all-in-one, HIPAA-compliant platform spanning telehealth, online booking, customizable documentation, and autopay.
2021 – 2023
Led the User Experience and Design discipline for Spotify's advertising offerings, ensuring stellar tools and products that expand Spotify's footprint in the digital audio marketplace while connecting listeners to content they love through promotional touchpoints.
2019 – 2021
Drove company-wide design system strategy across Intuit's cornerstone brands, including TurboTax, QuickBooks, ProConnect, and Mint. I defined the vision and developed an action plan that delivered a unified One Intuit Design System, ensuring consistent experiences across all products.
2019
Provided holistic oversight and hands-on guidance for all creative functions, including Product Design, CX Research, physical environmental design, and corporate brand strategy.
2017 – 2019
Led a multidisciplinary team of Artists, Writers, Filmmakers, Strategists, Analysts, Producers, and Builders dedicated to telling Facebook's story to marketers and advertisers. I also oversaw Studio X, Facebook's in-house creative agency for Business Products.
2014 – 2017
Led multiple product design teams powering Facebook's rapidly evolving advertising platform. As head of the "Outcomes" team, I guided the development of Facebook's complex advertising tools, from targeting and audience building to campaign reporting and measurement. I also evolved Facebook's Business Design standards from a skunkworks effort into a full cross-functional team with global engineering support.
2010 – 2014
Served as Head of Design for Yahoo's global Ads and Data products. As an original team member, I designed and built Yahoo! Gemini, the company's native/search ad platform.
2004 – 2010
Oversaw creative vision and all design projects for the brand, including front-end website designs, UI/UX, B2B materials, and marketing assets. Successfully managed creative resources from concept to completion while developing relationships with agencies representing tier-1 brands.
I regularly share insights on design leadership, AI's impact on design organizations, and ethical design practices through keynotes, panels, and podcasts. Recent highlights include:
Upscale Conference keynote on how new AI input modalities are reshaping design organizations, with real examples of operationalizing AI UX
Panel discussions on Creative Operations (Creative Agility, Los Angeles) and design's impact on cafe culture (Academic Coffee podcast)
Podcast interview, Unserious, sharing my transition from engineer to designer and the impact of visual storytelling in forging a company's culture.
Guest Lecturer, Pratt Institute - "Decoding the Interview", plus "Lessons in Creativity" presentations at Spotify's "The Opening Act" HBCU/HSI roadshow
Podcast interview, Now What Podcast by Wix, discussing how brands can connect with consumers using audio, what’s next in podcasting, and the impact of designing for Enterprise/B2B.
My approach to design leadership is grounded in proven methodologies and human-centered principles:
My teams operate under core principles designed to create business products that reduce waste and help people succeed:
To succeed in crafting stellar business products, the tools we ship have to dramatically reduce the significant waste of financial and human capital produced by bad software. More importantly, at a human level, these products help people be more successful — and, ultimately, happier in their work lives.
We must help users get better at their jobs. Inline training and help is critical for these products, and helping people adopt best practices — which are often difficult to understand — is a huge part of the job.
In consumer products, we aim to maximize engagement. In the workplace, efficiency is key: streamline repetitive tasks and we save everyone time and money. But we can't prioritize efficiency at the expense of understanding and supporting users' overall goals.
Business products carry inherent complexity that must be respected. If you don't simplify the tools enough, people have a hard time. But if you over-simplify, you risk losing the very value the product is meant to provide.
Accuracy and predictability are table stakes for business products. Companies spend real time, money, and energy on the tools we provide — and if they can't count on reliable, predictable results, that money understandably goes elsewhere.
Mentor - ADPList (2020 - Present): Provide pro bono portfolio reviews and career guidance to designers globally through this community platform connecting talent with mentors and opportunities.
Advisor - Art Institutes Alumni Board (2014 - 2019): Organized enrichment projects for alumni while advising on curriculum development with cutting-edge design technologies and modern practices.
Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.
— Marshall Goldsmith
