Most designers pick one. The strategists float above the pixels and hand engineering a beautiful idea that dies in implementation. The craftspeople polish something nobody needed. I've been in rooms with both, and both are expensive.
So I took the time to learn both: the business case that gets it funded, the constraint that shapes it, the error message that decides whether anyone comes back. Fourteen years in, the part I'm proudest of isn't a screen. It's that I can put a number next to almost all of it.
Influence
How I lead
I've worked with brilliant designers who couldn't move a room, and average ones who moved everything. The difference was never talent. It was whether they'd decided what they were responsible for. I decided a long time ago: the bar, the direction, the mess nobody claimed, and the people. Nobody hands you those. You pick them up, and then you have to be right often enough that people keep letting you.
Experience
DeC 2025 - present
GitLab
Mar 2022 - mAY 2026
Twilio
Sep 2021 - Mar 2022
Accenture
Feb 2021 - Sep 2021
CloudBees
Dec 2019 - Feb 2021
ING Bank
Aug 2018 - Dec 2019
Minsait by Indra
Jun 2017 - aug 2018
Innroute
2012 - 2017
Freelancer



