I lead creative teams from the work, not from a distance. I am a designer in my own right, and I bring that eye to every review: making the final call, curating the strongest options, and helping each designer's work reach its best. Behind that sit the operations that let a team move fast. I build the case for the right systems, get them running, and put the right people in charge of them.
Background
26 years in design, nearly nine of them in creative leadership, across environmental and event design, product design, brand systems, and creative operations. I work across the full Adobe Creative Suite, project management platforms, and DAM systems, and I integrate current AI tools into design and production workflows.
Before design, I worked in hospitality, including serving on the opening team as Assistant General Manager of Dining Outlets at the Wyndham Boston Financial District.
The Work
Environments, concept to completion. I designed and delivered 13 interior spaces, including an executive boardroom, CEO office, two office suites, a corporate lobby, and a main selling floor. One example: I designed the interior of a newly built podcast studio, control room, green room, and kitchen included. I placed every frame and photograph, custom designed the backdrop shelving, selected the acoustic panels, and chose paint colors and furniture for the surrounding suite of nine to ten offices and the lobby.
Across these projects I produced the renderings for each, along with scale models and full-scale mapping where the build called for them, selected finishes and furniture, and directed contractors, electricians, cabinetry, AV, and signage vendors through completion.
Events and staging. I designed custom stage sets for conferences of thousands of attendees, pitching them with scale models and building many pieces myself. On other productions, I set the scope and directed interior designers, who pitched options for me to select and execute. For multinational broadcast events reaching audiences in the tens of thousands, I set the creative direction for the content, presentation, and walk-on graphics that ran across the venue's LED stage walls. For one company event, I led the design and build of a full stage set in a Willy Wonka theme, with custom props and environmental pieces built from the ground up.
Programs at scale. For two years I led an enterprise-wide creative function run on an agency model, serving nine departments as clients through defined intake, production, and approval, and delivering 98%+ on-time performance across 2,500 to 3,000 projects a year. I directed creative for the company's flagship training program, delivered across four language versions and multiple markets, along with a multi-level mastery program and a year-long productivity program serving a membership in the tens of thousands. The work spanned workbooks, branded kits, video graphics, coaching playbooks, digital resources, and keynote presentations.
The systems underneath. I built the business case for the company's first digital asset management system, projecting about $200K a year in recovered team productivity at a fraction of the system's cost, and led it through approval and implementation. I redesigned product packaging for sustainability, saving about $100K a year.
I owned budgets for company-wide initiatives such as the One2One and Leadership Playbooks, from proposal and sourcing through multi-vendor production and on-time delivery. On first-time rollouts with no predecessor to benchmark against, I value-engineered materials and production to lower cost without lowering perceived value. I partnered with Business Intelligence to forecast purchasing from adoption, attrition, sales, and conversion data, buying in bulk at the best unit cost without overbuying or running short. I championed the rollout of the project management platform that remains the organization's operational backbone, and helped hire the manager to run it. None of it was assigned to me. The gap was there, and I closed it.
How I Lead
My leadership runs on compassion and strong values, paired with a critical eye and a drive for excellence. I build teams where designers keep elevating their skills while creating memorable work, because great design leadership means developing people as much as developing products. My work moves fast and can shift with little warning, so I stay steady, triage quickly, and protect the quality.
Looking Ahead
The work that energizes me is shaping spaces and experiences: environments, staging, and event design for hospitality, retail, and corporate settings, where I lead a talented team, make the final creative call, and see the work built.
Discernment, sound judgment, and a sharp creative instinct, with the guest and the business in every decision.