I turn complex systems into products people can trust.

PRINCIPAL UX/PRODUCT DESIGNER · 25+ YEARS · OPEN TO FULL-TIME REMOTE ROLES

I turn complex fintech, healthcare, and enterprise systems into clear, accessible products—and build the design systems, teams, and operating models to sustain them. As a world-class technologist, I translate complex AI and software development lifecycle (SDLC) decisions for clients, peers, and C-level leaders. For AI-powered search, I start with content: the model assembles the answer; the source material determines whether it is right, useful, and trustworthy.

The work, in context — 12 public case studies

BCBSMA Digital Reinvention

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts · 2017

My role: Principal UX Architect — Acting Head of UX

1,000+ properties aligned under shared design direction

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts had more than 1,000 digital properties shaped by years of siloed decisions, vendors, and organizational change. The fragmentation affected B2B, B2C, and Medicare experiences at the same time that healthcare products had to meet strict accessibility, HIPAA, and delivery constraints. The problem was therefore organizational as much as visual: the company needed a system and operating model that could make consistent decisions at scale.

Outcome: I helped align more than 1,000 properties around an accessible, scalable design-system direction spanning three business lines. The work established a governance model, centralized UX practice, and repeatable delivery lifecycle for regulated healthcare experiences.

TIAA FinTech Product Design

TIAA · 2018-2024

My role: Principal UX Design Lead & Enterprise Strategist

UX strategy across 20+ retirement products

TIAA's retirement, pension, and annuity experiences were fragmented across legacy platforms, product lines, and organizational silos. Users were making consequential money-movement and benefit decisions through patchwork experiences, while UX was often pulled into a reactive service-desk role instead of being invited to shape product vision. The opportunity was to reduce that legacy risk while creating a shared design language for web, mobile, and institutional products.

Outcome: The work helped move UX from a reactive service function toward a strategic product capability and supported products involved in more than $500M in digital money movement. Modular, accessible experiences served web, mobile, and institutional contexts from a shared source of truth, giving teams a more consistent foundation for high-consequence financial workflows.

Staples Global Product Design

Staples · 2014–2015

My role: Head of Worldwide Product Design — Global Sr. Director

$14B e-commerce across 5 brands

Staples operated a $14B global e-commerce portfolio across five brands, 16 languages, and 20 countries, with 30 web products and 20 mobile apps carrying different patterns and levels of maturity. Customers had to work through legacy category structures and inconsistent purchase flows, while the design organization was too small to govern the experience at the speed the business required.

Outcome: I established a shared design-system direction and UX operating model across 30 web products and 20 mobile apps. Two-Click Access gave teams a practical target for simplifying category, search, and purchase journeys, while the expanded design organization created capacity to work across five brands, 16 languages, and 20 countries.

The design problem is usually bigger than the screen.

I work on the conditions around the interface: the product decision that needs clarity, the system that needs a shared language, the team that needs a stronger operating model, and the compliance risk that cannot be deferred. My job is to make the complex understandable, connect design to a business outcome, and leave behind patterns and practices that help the organization keep moving.

I architect ecosystems that survive the chaos of global enterprise.

For more than 25 years, I've operated at the intersection of human psychology, technical architecture, and business strategy. I've led design across a $14B e-commerce business, helped bring 1,000+ fragmented healthcare properties under one system, and now combine deep UX practice with AI application architecture — closing the gap between human-centered design and production engineering.

Board advisor to multiple startups on UX strategy, design systems, AI adoption, and product-market fit. DOJ ADA Subject Matter Expert since 2014. Certified in NVIDIA AI Development, AWS Cloud Practitioner, and Google Generative AI.

“Simplicify is the Ultimate Sophistication.”
— Leonardo da Vinci

Availability

Available now for full-time, remote Principal or Staff Product Designer roles.
Also open to Fractional leadership (CDO, CIO, CPM, COO) engagements.
Fractional scope includes Product Management, Business Automation, and Product Operations leadership.

Experience at a glance

$500M+ — Digital money movement, TIAA
1,000+ — Web properties unified, BCBSMA
5 → 35+ — Global design team built, Staples
100+ — Industry design awards

Practice Areas

What I Bring to the Table

AI Product Design & Architecture

I design AI workflows around trust, recovery, and human control. For AI-powered search, I start with real questions and the content model, then design citations, honest uncertainty, and a useful non-AI path. Live-model prototypes let teams evaluate real behavior before they commit to a roadmap.

NVIDIA AI Development · AWS Cloud Practitioner · Google Generative AI

Design System Architecture

I build the rules, components, and governance that let teams move faster without lowering the quality bar. The systems are designed to outlast the engagement and remain useful when I am no longer in the room.

1,500-icon system at Citrix · 1,000+ properties unified at BCBSMA

Fractional Leadership

I bring Product Management, Business Automation, and Product Operations leadership alongside senior design judgment — aligning executives, product, engineering, research, and design around decisions that can ship.

Teams scaled 5 → 35+ globally · Executive alignment · Design operating models

eCommerce UX Strategy

I connect customer behavior to commercial outcomes. At Staples, I led product design across a $14B e-commerce business spanning five brands, 16 languages, and 20 countries.

$14B annual revenue · 5 brands · 16 languages · 20 countries

ADA / WCAG Accessibility

I treat accessibility as product architecture, not a late-stage audit. My practice began in 1993 and includes DOJ ADA subject-matter expertise, WCAG, Section 508, accessible systems, and team education.

DOJ SME since 2014 · WCAG 2.0, 2.1, 3.0 · Section 508 · EAA

Healthcare & Fintech UX

I design for moments where clarity and trust have consequences: retirement money movement at TIAA, healthcare experiences at BCBSMA, and institutional finance workflows at Fidelity.

$500M digital money movement at TIAA · HIPAA-compliant systems at BCBSMA

Skills and capabilities

Product design: UX strategy, end-to-end product design, information architecture, interaction design, design systems, component libraries, and design operations.
AI product design: AI-powered search strategy, content types and metadata, safety flags, cited answers, honest uncertainty, traditional-search fallbacks, AI voice and scope, human review, and live-model prototypes. A recent app concept structured 687 reference records across 24 tables.
Research and strategy: User interviews, usability testing, journey mapping, jobs to be done, UX audits, and analytics-informed design decisions.
Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 AA, Section 508, ADA, the European Accessibility Act, accessibility audits, inclusive design, and accessible component architecture.
Leadership and delivery: Organization design, hiring and mentoring, career ladders, design operations, roadmap partnership, prioritization, delivery at scale, design ROI, and executive communication.

Tools

Figma · Adobe Creative Cloud · Miro · Jira · Confluence · React prototyping · Claude · Claude Code · Replit · Base44 · Google AI suite · Google Cloud · NVIDIA and AMD AI suites · Supabase · Vercel · AWS · Azure · Analytics and research platforms

Fractional Leadership

Senior leadership for the work between strategy and delivery.

Two distinct ways to add experienced leadership: strengthen Product Management, Business Automation, and Product Operations leadership across your product and platform ecosystem, or lead UX and product design across complex experiences. Engagements are shaped around your goals, team, and stage of change.

01 · Fractional Product, Platform & Process Leadership

Connect business priorities to delivery.

Product Management, Business Automation, and Product Operations leadership for organizations that need clearer priorities, more efficient operations, and a healthier path from strategy to shipped work.

Product Management: Shape product direction, discovery, roadmaps, decision-making, and outcome-focused delivery.
Business Automation: Find friction in processes and handoffs, then simplify and automate repeatable work with clear human review and accountability.
Product Operations leadership: Connect planning, customer feedback, delivery rhythms, and launch readiness through clear ownership and practical operating standards.
Developer ecosystem management: Coordinate internal teams, vendors, tools, workflows, and quality practices across the delivery ecosystem.
Enterprise feature priorities: Sequence complex feature requests around customer value, business goals, risk, dependencies, and capacity.
Human–AI decision gates: Define what AI can handle, where it can assist, and when a person must review, approve, or take over.
Plan, build, run, transfer: Establish practical operating rhythms and leave teams with clear ownership, documentation, and next steps.

Discuss an engagement

02 · Fractional UX & Product Design Leadership

Make complex products easier to use and deliver.

Experienced design leadership that connects customer needs, business strategy, and engineering realities—from early product decisions through delivery and continuous improvement. I partner across Product Management, Business Automation, and Product Operations leadership so the experience and operating model improve together.

Experience strategy: Clarify user needs, product intent, and experience principles so teams can make consistent decisions.
Research and problem framing: Turn customer evidence and operational constraints into focused problems and testable opportunities.
Design systems and governance: Build reusable patterns, guidance, and review practices that support consistency across products and teams.
Accessible product quality: Bring accessibility and usability into product decisions, design reviews, and delivery workflows.
Design and engineering partnership: Improve handoffs and collaboration with clear interaction models, prototypes, and implementation guidance.
Team and practice leadership: Set direction, coach partners, and strengthen the design practice without adding unnecessary process.

Discuss an engagement

Engagement scope and fees are discussed directly and tailored to the organization’s needs.

Digital SanSkrit — A grammar of icons for complex systems

A treatise on iconography as language: visual roots, compositional rules, naming, archive strategy, and interaction guidance that help teams extend a shared system without losing meaning.

Digital Sanskrit — Explore the book’s principles, origin, and method.

The path to the book

2007 onward · Citrix — A system at scale: Building a 1,500-icon language for complex enterprise products made the challenge clear: teams needed shared rules for meaning and use, not just a consistent visual style.
From library to language — Rules teams can extend: Naming, composition, archive strategy, and interaction guidance turned a large icon library into a system teams could maintain and grow.
Digital SanSkrit — The method in a book: The treatise brings those principles together so teams can create new icons and meanings without losing the thread.

Language, not style: Iconography for complex systems is a language problem, not a style problem.
Rules that extend: Compositional rules let teams coin new meanings without losing the thread.
The principal designer as grammarian: “The principal designer becomes a grammarian—not creating individual utterances, but defining the framework that enables consistent production across teams.”

Eight semantic roots. A system teams can extend.

The book treats icons as a language: a small vocabulary of reusable meanings, combined through explicit rules rather than redrawn by taste for every new state.

Agent · karta: Who acts
Container · adhara: Where it belongs
Direction · disha: Where it moves
Flow · pravaha: How it relates
Link · bandhana: What connects
Severity · tivrata: How urgent
State · sthiti: What condition
Time · kala: When it applies

Composition rules

Fixed root order
Canonical modifier positions
Bounded composition depth
No new pixels for a compound

The same grammar supports people and software: operative icons receive accessible names from the same source as their tokens, while deterministic names and meanings make the system easier to maintain and safer for AI-assisted workflows.

Citrix origin · 2003–2007 · Continued from 2007 onward

The book traces its method to the Citrix Vista Iconic Language: a 2003–2007 effort to replace sixteen agency dialects across three products with one governed visual grammar. The system then carried forward as a reusable language for a suite serving more than 1,000 interfaces.

16 agencies → one grammar · 3 products → one suite · 1,000+ interfaces

View the full book story Read the book PDF

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