Professional Skills

Service Design & Design Strategy • Mixed Method Research • Prioritization & Resource Optimization • Knowledge Management • Performance Management • Organizational Design & Change Management • Program Management • Facilitation • Cross-functional Stakeholder Alignment

Professional Experience

CVS Health, Remote • Sr Manager, Design Research & ResearchOps • June 2022 - Current
Leadership & Team Building

  • Built and scaled a research operations team that supports a 400-person design org across five portfolios.

  • Result: increased per-person research output by 182% by streamlining workflows, enabling a smaller team to deliver nearly the same volume of reports.

Allocation & Prioritization

  • Developed and implemented a weighted scoring system to stack rank work by strategic value, driving transparent, objective prioritization.

  • Created an Airtable AI agent to integrate with UX research prioritization matrix, to automatically synthesizing research insights and level of feature desirability.

  • Result: maintained 95% of output after a 67% reduction in team size by focusing on the highest-value work.

Performance Management & Talent Development

  • Built and rolled out a career framework with clear rubrics by job grade, IDPs, and standardized job descriptions, improving internal growth and external hiring alignment.

  • Result: 32% increase in individual development plan completion.

Knowledge Management

  • Oversaw the procurement of an AI-enhanced research repository enabling automated tagging, summarization, and rapid knowledge retrieval.

  • Supported the creation of a standard taxonomy, intelligent tagging and summarization for fast retrieval and reduced duplicate efforts.

  • Result: saved 488 hours of duplicative research efforts in the first quarter post-launch.

Training

  • Led training to upskill teams on integrating AI into workflows, eg: effective prompting, using AI to think better, etc.

  • Supported a comprehensive testing protocol to evaluate and compare potential AI design tools, mapping each tool’s strengths and fit within the double diamond process.

  • Created and facilitated a manager training series for new leaders, building core skills in 1:1s, psychological safety, self-awareness, delegation, feedback, and coaching—accelerating team development and leadership effectiveness.

  • Result: 93 designers were up-skilled across 5 teams.

CVS Health, Remote • Manager, Design Research • September 2019 - June 2022

  • Served as a player-coach, balancing hands-on research leadership with team mentorship—intaking, prioritizing, and defining research initiatives to align with business goals.

  • Managed and influenced senior-level stakeholders, educating them on the strategic value of research and translating insights into actionable recommendations.

  • Led the intake and scoping of research requests, collaborating cross-functionally to prioritize high-impact projects and ensure alignment with organizational priorities.

  • Defined product roadmaps in partnership with product and design leads, leveraging research data and service design methodologies to inform decision-making and drive user-centered outcomes.

Vertafore, Denver, CO • Manager, User Experience & Lead Design Strategist • March 2018 – September 2019

  • Team Leadership: Directed an 11-person centralized UX/UI team supporting 9 development teams in an agile enterprise environment for a new InsurTech platform.

  • Facilitated high-visibility co-creation workshops with executive stakeholders and clients, driving alignment and ideation for net new software solutions within Vertafore’s tech incubator.

  • Designed and led collaborative sessions to translate business objectives and user needs into actionable product concepts and MVP roadmaps.

  • Partnered with cross-functional teams to synthesize workshop outcomes into strategic design recommendations and prioritized feature sets.

  • Guided executive and client teams through structured ideation, journey mapping, and rapid prototyping to accelerate innovation and reduce time-to-market.

  • Established repeatable frameworks for executive engagement and collaborative solutioning.

GetVokl, Boulder, CO • Senior UX Designer & Researcher • August 2016 - March 2018

Lead in-house teams in early discovery research through to product implementation. Conducted qualitative & exploratory research efforts to inform product feature sets. Turned data into actionable insights, designed & facilitated ideation sessions, and then implemented ideas into UI. Worked closely with developers to balance technical effort with user experience implications.

IA Collaborative, Chicago, IL • Design Researcher & Strategist • June 2014 - August 2016

Developed human-centered products and services for Fortune 500 clients. Applied tools and methods include planning & conducting field research, developing co-creation techniques & artifacts, secondary/desktop research, research synthesis, framework development, workshop facilitation, and client engagement in human-centered design activities.

Adaptive Path, San Francisco, CA • Service Design Intern • June 2013 – August 2013

Developed service design strategies & solutions for Fortune 500 clients. Applied tools and methods include workshop facilitation, secondary/desktop research, synthesis of qualitative data, and visualizing proposed solutions

Education

Master of Design, Service Design
Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA – May 2014 – GPA: 3.8

Bachelors of Art, Graphic Design & Psychology
Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL – May 2008 – GPA: 3.5