Some kids took things apart to see how they worked. I put them back together.
Some people are drawn to complexity. I'm drawn to what's on the other side of it. Growing up, whether it was rallying a team on a losing streak or turning a blank canvas into something that finally made sense, I was always most alive when I was untangling something difficult and making it feel simple. That pull never went away. It just found a more permanent home in design and creative leadership, where the problems are bigger and the satisfaction of getting to the other side is that much greater.
The best creative leadership is only partly about design.
Nearly two decades at Vistaprint, Constant Contact, and Veeva taught me that. It's really about people: building teams that genuinely trust each other, creating the conditions where good work survives the pressures that kill it, and reading a room well enough to know when to lead from the front and when to step back. I've stood up creative organizations from scratch, led designers across five continents, and originated products that didn't exist before I walked in the door.
A deliberate pause, a move south, and what came next.
A little over a year ago I stepped back, moved from Boston to Charlotte to be closer to my daughters, and gave myself the kind of space that busy careers rarely allow. Day trips with three girls who have strong opinions about everything, hammocks, good books, showing up for whatever they're currently obsessed with. It has been exactly what I needed. I'm coming out of it focused, recharged, and ready for what's next. I know what I want – purposeful in-house creative work, with a team worth investing in. I'm ready to go do it.
I'm looking for an in-house role where design has real organizational weight and creative leadership is trusted to do what it does best. The right opportunity gives me a meaningful problem to solve, people worth showing up for every day, and a business that understands those two things are connected. I want to work somewhere that takes design thinking seriously — not as a buzzword but as an actual operating principle — and where coaching and developing talent is treated as core to the function, not secondary to it. I'm deliberate about what I take on next, because I know what I bring and I know the difference it makes in the right environment.