How might we build organizational capacity for Design Sprints?
I brought and scaled Design Sprints at Kaiser Permanente by leading high-impact projects that improved the Mental Health experience, reduced the health impacts of unhoused elders, and streamlined internal processes.
Because of these demonstrated successes, my team was invited to integrate Design Sprints into KP’s Executive Leadership Program (ELP) capstone week which led to breakthrough concepts for Telehealth.
You can read about lessons from this ELP Sprint Week here.
How might we introduce Human Centered Design to a broad employee base?
In partnership with KP’s Design Consultancy I helped create a sustainable HCD culture by: establishing an HCD & Co-Design curriculum, creating an annual in-person trainings with 200+ attendees employees, and hosting an ongoing community of practice with 1,200+ contributors learning and sharing stories about HCD being used in their jobs.
How might we best equip employees to do design-thinking virtually?
Even before the pandemic hit, we knew that conducting design-thinking virtually would be an essential piece to embedding these practices into the culture.
My team and I created an innovative training model with a train-the-trainer approach. With 100+ attendees across 12+ breakout groups each with a facilitator, attendees participated an immersive design-thinking project that walked them through the key phases of the design process.
How might we improve meeting culture with effective collaboration?
KP employees were overwhelmed by back-to-back meetings with unclear objectives and minimal outcomes. To address this, I created the Effective Collaboration Ladder, a framework that redefined how teams approached meetings and working sessions. I designed a five-part training series with a companion self-guided learning journey, and integrated the framework into manager goals. The result: teams shifted from “talking head” meetings to collaborative working sessions that produced measurable decisions, refinements, and outcomes—elevating both efficiency and engagement across the organization.
How might we embrace continuous improvement?
When Shelter-in-Place made remote work the long-term norm in 2020, Marketing leaders turned to our team to strengthen their culture of continuous improvement. I designed and implemented a multi-channel approach that included training 80+ employees in retrospective facilitation, launching a quarterly community of practice for leaders to share insights, and securing executive sponsorship that highlighted team improvements in Town Halls and internal social media. This program not only built lasting retrospective skills but also embedded continuous improvement into Marketing’s operating culture, boosting both operational excellence and employee experience.
How might we reduce redundant work efforts across KP’s marketing regions?
KP consists of a headquarters and 8 different regions. However, each marketing region is financially independent with its own governance structure, leading to redundant work efforts.
Through leadership interviews, my team identified that marketing is not currently evaluated in the same way across the regions making it nearly impossible to prove an ROI for a Shared Service. Our team established a new foundation by getting leaders on the same page with metrics for measuring their success.
This project resulted in a shared service approach where best practices were easily shared and scaled.
How might we best align the marketing and digital departments?
The marketing and digital teams were experiencing an unending divide. With different processes, timelines, priorities and beyond, collaboration between the two departments were fraught with inefficiencies.
I used an ethnographic approach by interviewing stakeholders from both departments, captured sensitive information in the format of abstracted stories, and led several co-design sessions to align priorities and processes.
As a result internal clients had an easier time making requests and solutions were shipped faster than ever.
While working to facilitate and coach teams in design-thinking and organizational change, I’ve also been applying these methods to my own marriage to bring about more sanity and satisfaction while starting a family.
After realizing most couples only seek out help when things are rocky, I started Coupledom to help successful couples thrive during times of change.
I bring an innovation-driven coaching approach by applying design-thinking to relationships with notable impact in the following areas:
Conceived and launched “Relationship Design” methodology, blending coaching and design-thinking.
Designed and facilitated immersive offsites for couples; approach featured in SF Standard.
Created Parent Change Journey framework, now guiding families in navigating pivotal transitions.
Built Substack following of hundreds; delivered 200+ hours of transformational coaching.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, in partnership with Accenture, launched an initiative to reimagine the student application process and system architecture with the goals of:
improving user experience
reducing application pressure
supporting equitable access
increasing data accuracy
mitigating fraud
The vision: a CCCApply application that is intuitive, inclusive, and secure — a best-in-class first impression for students.
As Change Management Lead, I engaged a broad range of stakeholders to ensure the redesigned application worked seamlessly for both students and reviewers. Moving beyond a traditional task force model, I brought together input from 200+ staff across 59 colleges through surveys, interviews, and workshops, creating a co-design process that built buy-in and generated actionable insights.
I also led a Change Impact Assessment that aligned project sponsors on who would be most affected, allowing us to target support where it was needed most. Partnering closely with the visual design team, our work not only shaped a more student-centered application but was also recognized with a prestigious Red Dot Design Award.
You can learn more about the project on the publicly available site here.
On the night of Obama’s election in 2008, I bought the URL designforamerica.org. A year later, I met a team at Northwestern University with a shared vision — and together, we turned that idea into a national network of innovators using Human-Centered Design (HCD) for local and social impact.
As the first full-time staff member, I helped transform our shared dream into a sustainable and impactful organization.
Over five years at Design for America (DFA), I helped scale the organization from a single campus with 40 students to a national network of 30 universities and more than 1,000 student innovators. Some of my proudest contributions include:
TEDx Talk
I was honored to deliver a TEDx talk to 500+ educators in Indianapolis on the impact of DFA. The talk was later shared by Stanford d.school faculty, extending its reach to over 8,000 viewers and amplifying DFA’s influence.
Leadership Studio
Each year, students from across the country came to Northwestern’s campus to learn Human-Centered Design through hands-on projects. I built partnerships with local community organizations — from breast cancer survivors to young adults with Down syndrome to families affected by flooding — ensuring every project addressed real, urgent needs.
HCD Process Guide
I co-developed an award-winning Human-Centered Design curriculum guide that became the backbone of DFA’s programming. The guide was used by chapters nationwide, both in real-time collaboration and as a self-guided learning tool.
Sponsored Projects
I secured sponsorships with companies including Fiat-Chrysler, Newell Rubbermaid, and 3M to co-create social impact projects aligned with their expertise. DFA teams tackled these challenges as extracurricular projects guided by professional mentors and DFA Fellows. These collaborations produced innovative design solutions while also opening doors to internships and career opportunities for countless students.
Fellows Program
I launched and managed DFA’s Fellows Program, recruiting standout DFA graduates to mentor chapters nationwide and strengthen our growing network. Through a carefully designed onboarding process and ongoing mentorship, Fellows became catalysts for organizational growth while deepening their own leadership skills.
