Manager
Mechanical Orchard, January 2024 - Present
Product Manager for the Infrastructure team
Manage engineers, designers, and product managers
Manager, Product Management & Design
VMware Tanzu Labs (formerly Pivotal Labs), March 2022 - Present
Manage the growth and development of Product Management and Product Design consultants
Collaborate with management team to support culture, encourage DE&I, deliver successful client engagements, grow our people, and maintain a healthy business
Led a workstream to bring together marketing, sales, and delivery to focus on key outcomes and measure success to drive additional business in the public sector
Mentor individual contributor work streams such as Writers Bureau, Leadership Consulting, and Tanzu Labs Practice Talks
Senior Product Manager & Leadership Advisor
VMware Tanzu Labs (formerly Pivotal Labs), November 2020 - March 2022
Work with your clients to define and drive product strategy, identifying key outcomes and success metrics
Discover customer problems and create valuable, desirable and feasible solutions
Collaborate with developers and designers to define and prioritize product backlogs that continuously deliver measurable value towards the vision
Helping leaders on the client side to innovate and iterate on lean/agile product management processes and build a healthy practice
Bring clarity where there is uncertainty and identify and manage risk
Identify critical assumptions, define experiments, measure success metrics, and use data to inform decisions at both the product and the organizational levels
Teach clients how to do all of these things for themselves
Vice President of Product & Design
Retrium, January 2020 - November 2020
Established the Product Design & Product Management disciplines for the company
Introduced a continuous user research and usability testing program
Introduced a customer feedback management program to align the product roadmap with customer needs
Led a program to improve the product’s activation rate, resulting in an increase from 25% to 40% over 3 months
Introduced responsive design, accessibility best practices, and roadmaps to the product team
Design Practice Lead & Staff Designer
Pivotal, 2018 - 2020
Consulted with enterprise clients to scale product design and product management in their organizations
Taught workshops on Product Design, Product Management, Balanced Teams, agile processes, and other topics related to software product development and team organization
Established objectives, goals, and outcomes for digital transformation programs (OKRs, OGSMs, SMART goals)
Developed organizational structures and cultures for agile teams, focusing on growing design and product management
Helped teams assess capabilities and gaps through Health Checks, retrospectives, and prioritization exercises
Mentored and taught designers and product managers
Product Management Advisor
Humana, 2015 - 2018
Launched 12 unique software products, including mobile apps and web apps for B2B, B2C, and internal customers
Pitched, built, and launched Personify, a custom-built tool that introduced user research into the IT organization
Mentored Product Managers across the company through classroom instructions, meetups, and speaking
Recruited, interviewed, and hired Product Managers, Product Designers, and Software Engineers
Conducted business development to bring new projects to Humana’s software accelerator and technology incubator
Lead Visual Designer (2012-2014), Product Designer (2014-2015)
Humana, 2012 - 2015
Conducted over 300 usability tests and user research sessions
Product Designer for Cue, an Apple Watch app designed and built in 5 weeks, that was featured in the App Store on launch day
Collaborated with engineers, Product Managers, and other designers on customer-facing mobile and web applications
Marketing Specialist
DRE Veterinary, 2011-2012
I provided a broad set of marketing services for DRE’s Veterinary division, including direct mail marketing (design and targeting), trade show design, promotional design, web design, e-commerce analytics, search engine optimization, and print design of sales sheets and other materials.
Graphic Designer & Store Lead
CafePress, 2010-2011
As one of the first members of the CafePress brick-and-mortar team, I managed the operation of my location while also designing products for customers and for CafePress marketing.
Graphic Designer & Production Manager
McFaddin Marketing, 2007-2009
I joined McFaddin Marketing as a Graphic Designer, primarily focused on production work for our hospitality clients - restaurant menus, food packaging and labeling, physical signage, and restaurant employee training manuals. Soon after joining the company, I was made responsible for our in-house production schedule, including scheduling of digital print jobs, finishing and assembly, and packing and shipping to clients. I introduced a new order form for print jobs, as well as more robust automated styling for highly-repeated design elements, which improved efficiency and allowed us to product more work in the same amount of time, while maintaining quality.
Production Artist
Atria Senior Living, 2006-2007
As a member of the in-house corporate marketing team, I supported the graphic design and marketing needs of over 50 senior living communities with design assets for newsletters, direct mail campaigns, and event invitations and signage. I began as a temporary contractor while still a student at the University of Louisville, and was offered a full-time employee role upon graduation.