Principal content strategist

Blue Shield of California
Washington, D.C. (remote)
2023 to present

• Information architecture and navigation:
  Conducted a site-wide audit of web properties for one of the nation’s largest health care insurance companies. Collaborated with designers, developers, and stakeholders to understand current state, future plans, and the systems (content management, database, third-party tools, and more) to support them. Recommended revised navigation to help the site deliver findable, helpful content to insured individuals and the health care providers and professionals who serve them.

• Company-wide content strategy:
  To boost the site navigation redesign, proposed member-focused content strategy proposals throughout the organization to make content more accessible, understandable, and useful. Rolled out content strategy recommendations incrementally, to complement and not disrupt work in flight and to encourage agile, iterative design.

• Content design systems and standards:
  Building on nascent style guides and an emerging design system, collaborated with content creators across the company to strengthen content standards for UX, marketing, and content operations. Turned design and content standards into systems to increase quality and efficiency in Blue Shield content.

• Content design collaboration and delivery:
  Collaborated with designers, product managers, and stakeholders to design UX features and flows, strengthening them with clear, user-focused content. Helped refine content and design requirements, and delivered effective content based on them. Developed and demonstrated content-first approaches to design, planning, and product management.

Senior product design manager, design systems

BILL (Bill.com) Trinity Design System
Washington, D.C. (remote)
2022 to 2023

• Design team leadership:
  Led a multidisciplinary team of design and technology experts—product designers, information architect, mobile architect, brand designer, visual designer, design technologist—to design and document a system to support current financial technology product offerings and a future, unified version of BILL experiences.

• Design system process improvements:
  Audited a partially complete design system, identified gaps and opportunities, and organized tracks of work to help the team make progress and achieve system goals. To arrive at measurable business outcomes of design consistency and quality, we organized and scoped work into specific tracks: components, design tokens and themes, patterns, documentation, training, and communication.

• Design system people improvements:
  Inherited an exceptionally smart, committed team of design system designers and technologists and identified ways to improve their productivity and psychological safety by working on cultural improvements, such as developing a culture of sharing, laughing, and frequent collaboration.

• Design system focus, vision, and execution:
  Collaborated to help the team refocus their efforts and realize that the design system, at its best, is not a component and documentation factory, but a means of gentle, persistent cultural change that results in better designs, stronger products, and happier team members.

Senior product design manager

Compass Design System, Compass Platform
Washington, D.C. (remote)
2021 to 2022

• Design team management:
  Led a team of senior product designers as they collaborated with research, product, engineering, and other partners. Supported and guided the team to brainstorm, create, test, and iterate on a suite of professional tools for real estate agents and the buyers and sellers they serve.

• Product design leadership and collaboration:
  Collaborated with product managers, designers, and executives to set strategies for new and enhanced products, capture requirements, and coordinate plans to deliver designs that help users reach meaningful goals. Efforts included working across the organization to develop systemic approaches to customer problems.

• Design system and product information architecture:
  Developed a plan to audit an existing, ungoverned design system and turn its array of components and patterns into a well-documented, useful resource for designers, engineers, product managers, and other members of the Compass product and engineering community.

• Design system site design:
  Led the design system team’s content strategy and workflow creation efforts to design an attractive, navigable site for design standards and guidelines. Teamed with product owners and a team of designers—product, visual, and content—to design, write, and launch an authoritative, enterprise-wide design and engineering resource.

Design systems lead

QuickBooks Design System and Intuit Design System, Intuit
Mountain View, California
2020 to 2021

• Design team management:
  Led a multidisciplinary team of product and marketing designers in establishing components, standards, and documentation, publishing and refining them, and training the entire Intuit design and content community to use systems for efficiency, cohesion, quality, and innovation. 

• Design system site redesign:
  Spearheaded a 12-month (and ongoing) project to redesign the QuickBooks Design System site, an effort that includes content inventories and audits, component inventories and audits, information architecture research and development, content management systems research, and visual design.

• Design tools migration from Sketch to Figma:
  In collaboration with an enterprise-wide team of designers and design program managers, led the design community to a new, collaborative design tool. This effort included a research phase, ROI analysis, beta rollout, testing, training, communications, ongoing support, discoveries, and iteration.

• Design community advocacy:
  As a design leader, established partnerships across Intuit to nurture a design community based on standards, exploration, and sharing. These pillars are an essential part of training and ongoing communications and help boost the efforts of individual designers, teams, and projects across the organization.

Principal content designer and strategist

Intuit
Mountain View, California
2016 to 2020

• Design systems innovation:
  As the lead content strategist on the QuickBooks and Intuit Design Systems, established better practices in information architecture, documentation, content design, adoption, and collaboration. Pioneered efforts to integrate content style guides and patterns into design system ecosystems. 

• Content design standards and processes:
  Collaborated with content designers across the organization to develop content patterns, repeatable approaches to some of the most frequently encountered content design problems. Also integrated content and accessibility guidelines into components and patterns documentation. 

• Content design team support and development:
  Established a regular series of lunch and learns to teach content designers about content strategy trends and technology; mentored numerous content designers and helped them develop skills and advance their careers; managed content design interns; and organized content strategy meetups across California.

• Content systems, tools, and processes:
  Tested content creation and management tools and tracked how content designers can use other design tools. Tested accounting and finance taxonomy. Integrated style guides into strings management and translation tools.

User experience lead and content strategist

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Digital
Glendale, California
2011 to 2015

• User experience leadership:
  Improved guest experiences and increased conversions as the leader of a user experience design team that created and optimized marketing, customer acquisition, and product experience flows for all Disney Parks and Resorts.

• Mobile content leadership:
  Improved online and in-park experiences and helped mobile apps earn additional revenue by optimizing content and flows for conversion. As the principal content strategist for mobile experiences, directed the content strategy for apps that help guests plan, purchase, and enjoy vacations at Disney parks and cruises.

• Content design:
  Created an award-winning mobile experience for Disneyland Resort in collaboration with product managers, creative directors, and technology teams. Reimagined content experiences for Disney’s most visited mobile sites. 

• Content migration:
  Increased online revenue and brought responsive design to Disneyland Paris by migrating their site onto a new design and technology platform. As the lead content strategist for global projects, established an international content strategy framework to unify experiences and messaging worldwide. 

Lead content strategist, design systems 

eBay
San Jose, California
2007 to 2011

• Content governance:
  Improved content and design governance across eBay’s network of sites and products and positioned the content and design team for greater collaboration and innovation. As the leading content strategist in the eBay Design Systems Group, established a cross-functional team to improve the effectiveness and ensure brand consistency of eBay content.

• Content tools:
  Spearheaded research and development efforts to establish content creation and management tools for eBay, such as third-party voice and tone programs and a searchable, expandable database of site terms, jargon, and usage notes.

• Content team management:
  Planned and prioritized expansion of eBay user experience design to encompass not only attention to content standards and tools but also increased emphasis on building a skilled, international team of content strategists, writers, and editors.

Education

The American University, Washington, D.C.
Master of Fine Arts, creative writing

Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio 
Bachelor’s Degree, graduated summa cum laude