I remember the exact moment I realized that I wanted to be a designer. My "aha" moment.

When I was a Sophomore, I signed up for the Yearbook class on a whim because I thought that would help me meet new people. You see, I had just moved to a new country half way across the world the year before and didn't know anyone in California other than my immediate and some extended family. So, I saw the Photography, Journalism, and Yearbook classes as a gateway to feed my creative appetite, meet other students, and make some friends along the way.

A few weeks into the first semester, I was picked to be in charge of putting together the layout of an entire section of the Yearbook. Indesign was our tool of choice. I very quickly became fascinated and quite obsessed with Indesign. I asked around to find out if I can do this for a living and this is when I was introduced to the term "Graphic Designer". The rest, as they say, is history.

Unmind

January 2018 – Present ∆ London

After moving from San Francisco to London, I was looking for an opportunity that would let me apply my learnings from my past experiences and grow as a leader, while contributing to a cause that had the potential to make such a huge impact on the world. Mission & culture were the two most important factors for me in my next role. After multiple conversations with the co-founders, Nick & Ry, the opportunity to lead the design team and to make a difference to our users' lives (quite literally) was too big to pass up. 3+ years in, I’m extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished as a team.

The most important lesson I’ve learned at Unmind so far — start out with a team of generalists and coach them to find their specialised paths. Grow the team keeping this key information in mind. Also, it’s never too early to start paying attention to your team’s culture.

HelloSign

Acquired by Dropbox in 2019

January 2014 – February 2017 ∆ San Francisco

I joined the team as the first designer/Head of Design. One of my primary responsibilities was to set a vision for Design's presence in everything we did from branding to the user experience and everything else in between. A few notable initiatives that I took on while at HelloSign — a full rebrand; platform redesign revisiting the user experience and the pixels; conception, branding, and design of a brand new product offering called HelloWorks.

The most important lesson I learned during my time at HelloSign — make a strong business case for growing your team well before the need arises. You want to be equipped with the right team in place when it comes time to solving interesting challenges at scale.

Zendesk

July 2012 – December 2013 ∆ San Francisco

Working at Zendesk was my introduction to the tech world. This is where I started to gain an understanding of how a B2B SaaS business operates. I joined Zendesk when the Design team was still quite small which gave me an opportunity to collaborate with Toke Nygaard, our Chief Creative Officer. Although I joined Zendesk as a Visual Designer, soon after joining I started to get interested in how the Product Design & User Research teams worked to craft a better user experience.

The most important lesson I learned during my time at Zendesk — gain a deep understanding of the needs and motivations of your users and clients. This will help you become a better storyteller and problem solver.

Noteworthy

Unmind

• Joined as Head of Design in 2018

• Redesigned the brand and platform

• Built out a team of 14 individuals including brand designers, product designers, and user researchers

• In the 4 years I was at Unmind:

  • Number of clients: 8 to 117

  • Team growth: 9 to 205

  • Funding: Angle round (£300K) to Series B ($47M)

HelloSign

• Joined as the founding designer in 2014

• Redesigned the brand and platform

• Built out a small design team to tackle some meaty problems

• In the 3 years I was at HelloSign:

  • Team growth: 11 to 185

  • Funding: Series A ($1.6M) to Series B ($16M)

• HelloSign got acquired by Dropbox in early 2019 for $230M