About Me
Welcome to my site! I currently live in Broomfield, CO, where I work remotely as a User Experience Manager for Flexera, a leading provider of IT management software. Until the September 2018 acquisition, I worked for RightScale, the leading cloud management SaaS platform. I began at RightScale in 2010, and during my time there I evangelized user-centered design throughout the company and grew a team of talented designers and researchers who made RightScale the leading cloud management platform as measured by top analysts Gartner and Forrester.
My professional philosophy
- Whether it is designing a complex new product, building a team of talented designers, or hiking to the highest peak in Colorado, I set lofty goals and push myself to complete them.
- I love mentoring aspiring professionals and seeing them grow in their career.
- I believe that a key role for any manager is to create a comfortable space free from unnecessary distractions and stressors so that each employee can do their best possible work to create products that customers love.
- I am a strong supporter of Lean principles, and I work to cultivate an environment where cross-functional teams of developers, designers, and product managers collaborate closely together to move stories forward rather than throwing deliverables over a siloed wall.
- I believe in establishing KPIs for projects early and gathering the necessary data to measure success.
- I am comfortable wearing many hats, and being an active contributor to design, user research, analytics, and front-end development.
What I look for
In order to do my best work, I prefer an environment where:
- Each team member is intrinsically motivated to do great work, and everyone celebrates each person’s individual success as well as the team’s success.
- Each person’s ideas are carefully considered, but everyone is also comfortable moving past them if they aren’t the best direction for a product.
- Management, IT, HR, and internal administrators believe in enabling each employee to do their best work, not putting up barriers to long-term success in return for short-term savings.
- Good design is a core aspect of the culture, and decision makers believe that a poor user experience is a barrier to release rather than something to be ignored.
- Best-in-class tools are embraced. High-end hardware and easy-to-use software both improve workplace morale and increase productivity.
- The culture is remote-friendly, focused on recruiting the best people and embracing tools and processes that support remote collaboration.
- Regardless of background, anyone can succeed, diversity is celebrated, and harassment is not tolerated in any form.
On the lighter side
Over the years, I have cultivated a variety of hobbies:
- Like many Colorado residents, I enjoy the outdoors.
- In the summer, you will find me hiking, biking, and camping in the mountains
- In the winter I may be skiing, snowshoeing, or curled up with a book in front of a fire.
- I’m an avid reader of both nonfiction and fiction (fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi being my favorite genres).
- I have a large collection of board games and participate in several gaming meetups.
- I love theater, and have a membership with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
- I am engaged with current events and non-profit causes; in another life I would likely have studied law.
- I’m involved with several local UX meetups, including serving as a mentor for Hexagon UX.