With over a decade of experience as a product designer, I bring a deep craft expertise that earns credibility with my team. Coupled with over 8 years of managing designers across all levels of seniority, I’ve built a strong toolkit for developing both emerging leaders and high-impact individual contributors. In my current role at Hometap, our company mission is to help homeowners leverage their home equity to meet their financial goals. In my time here, I’ve found that building a best-in-class design team is not unlike building the perfect home. Hear me out…

It starts with a strong foundation:
Just as a house needs a strong foundation to stand tall and weather storms, a high-functioning team needs a solid base of trust, communication, and shared goals. I focus on building this foundation (at times, brick by brick) in order to support the team’s growth and long term stability. Our design team’s culture centers around shared values, business goal alignment, and above all, user centricity. It’s important to me that we all feel a strong sense of ownership, pride in a job well done, and appreciation for one another’s unique personalities and skillsets. I strive to foster a culture of psychological safety and mutual respect.

Room for everyone:
The best houses have diverse features that make them unique and interesting. So does our design team. We celebrate and embrace the diversity of skills, perspectives, and personalities within our function. I work to cultivate an environment where people are given the tools, support, and space to do their best, develop deep subject matter expertise, and grow their leadership skills (if that’s where they want to go!) I provide professional development guidance and career pathing in a way that considers both the business needs and unique skillset and goals of the individual designer — there is always room for both.

Maintenance and Repairs:
Just like a house needs regular maintenance, a healthy team needs check-ins, feedback sessions, retros and regular opportunities for growth. I address issues promptly, keeping our house in good shape and ensuring everyone has the resources they need to succeed. I believe in frequent feedback as the most effective tool for growth — no one should ever find out they are doing well (or not) in an annual performance review. I interface with my team regularly, managing their development through regular 1:1’s, review sessions, KPI/OKR development, and career pathing. I champion a culture of growth and development. I nurture talent, providing the necessary resources and mentorship to hone skills and foster creativity. I empower our team to take risks, and to push the boundaries of conventional thinking in the pursuit of excellence.

I bring a strong product vision and a clear perspective on the business value of great user experience. I connect our UX vision to Hometap’s broader company goals, ensuring design efforts align with company priorities. A strong communicator and collaborator, I work across functions and levels—welcoming diverse perspectives while driving toward clarity, alignment, and decisive action.

As the a UX executive at Hometap, I am responsible for maintaining the design department as value-driven function. I do this by partnering with cross-functional leads from Product, Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Operations, and Business Development, etc. to develop product roadmaps, set OKRs, and define our Homeowner Experience strategy.

I believe that it’s not enough for Design just to simply contribute on a project level — we also have to be adept at explaining (and evangelizing) the value that we create and why it matters within the greater context of the business. Sure, our team is responsible for improving the end user experience for our audience, but we also must be able to articulate why this helps the business succeed!

I have a shipping mentality. While thoughtful analysis and validation matter (of course!), I believe that as companies scale, perfection often gets in the way of progress. The best way to learn is to ship, learn quickly, and iterate. Doing that well requires close partnership across design, product, engineering, and stakeholders, so I work collaboratively across the company to continually refine both our product and our ways of working.

I’m motivated by solving complex UX challenges, but I’m equally energized by improving the processes that help our teams do their best work. The strongest solutions come from teams that work well together, and I help design partner effectively across the organization—combining subject-matter expertise with a deep understanding of our users. We listen, we learn, and we iterate, and we try not to let the quest for perfection slow us down.

I set a high bar for execution and hold the team to industry-leading design standards. Over the past year, the team has embedded emerging AI capabilities into our practice to help us move faster and smarter—cutting out busy work, accelerating research, and prototyping big ideas early to validate or discard them. The result is a pragmatic, data-driven design practice that keeps things moving.