While Head of Design at Buf I led the development of our first design system, established the brand platform, redesigned the main product, and a refresh to the brand including a completely redesigned marketing site. During this time our ARR grew by over 6x.
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As the VP of Experience Design at 10up, I provided inspiration, leadership, and hands-on support to individual contributors and managers across the disciplines of content design, user experience, visual design, and product design.
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At Sourcegraph I reported directly to the CEO as part of the executive leadership on driving product and brand design across the company. My focus was on measurement of the impact of design, better systems to speed up the path to production, engagement of the teams, and strategically planning for the future to set our platform apart from our competitors.
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As part of the leadership at Zipline, I worked hand-in-hand with engineering and product leaders along with our CTO and CEO to drive forward an ever-improving product and brand experience. Our founders believed that design is a business differentiator. My role was to prove them right.
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While leading Digital Design at TELUS, my focus was on elevating the design culture, practice, design system, and products for the 45,000+ person company. I led the digital design practice (70+ people, many of whom I hired) and supported the content strategy practice for TELUS, seeing that both can scale and produce better experiences and outcomes.
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As the Design Coach to the Microsoft Garage Internship Program I worked with eight intern teams each year to see their project through to completion. The projects ranged from rethinking transit in a major metropolis to using the HoloLens to create guided experiences in physical spaces for the blind.
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The Garage is a resource to Microsoft employees that supports and encourages problem solving in new and innovative ways, ultimately empowering people to achieve more.
The Garage Internship program invites University students studying computer science, design & human computer interaction, and related fields to Microsoft Vancouver for an internship like no other. This intensive program centers on building apps for Microsoft’s newest and most exciting platforms and devices.
Lead at The Republic of Quality, a user experience & content strategy consultancy focused on making digital experiences a little more human. I was responsible for leading discovery, research, design, and training. Through my time running the Republic of Quality I shared ideas through publishing articles, running workshops, speaking at conferences, working with start-ups, governments, and enterprise to produce great digital services and products.
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I hired and led the UX team as Yellow Pencil scaled to meet enterprise client needs. I helped take the company from 10 to 40 people in my tenue and create their first fleshed out design practice. This included coordinating research, strategy, visual and interaction design, and content strategy.
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Steve joined Buf as the Head of Design and he has been a good partner to work with across a variety of needs, including big product design changes, bringing order to our design system in Figma, improving accessibility, redesigning our marketing site, updating our brand colors and logo, doing all of our event design, and making decisions around design staffing. In addition to the breadth of ownership Steve is capable of, he doesn’t hesitate to jump in to the details to move progress forward, which is especially valuable in smaller team environments like Buf. The thing I appreciate most about Steve is that I can trust he always considers what is best for the business and keeps the big picture in mind when making a decision. Steve is a flexible, versatile, trustworthy, kind, collaborative, and hands-on design leader who I’m happy to work with.
Steve is that great mixture of kind-but-firm design leader you want on your side. He understands the inner workings of organizations and is able to assess what is necessary for the entire design team to succeed, setting up necessary rituals, standards of practice, and being a center of calm in a sometimes chaotic agency world. As my direct manager, Steve has been a public champion for me and my efforts. He's an active listener, but more importantly, actions decisively on what he hears and understands. Appreciate having his support, and hope to continue learning from him in the future in whatever format that manifests!
I've worked with Steve in a number of capacities: He's been a partner as his and my companies collaborated to deliver projects. He's been a direct client of mine, and now we both work together at TELUS Digital.
The short is: Steve's done it all, and consistently done it well: He's run companies; he's been a principal designer here at TELUS Digital; been a senior director of a design team; he's hired and mentored everyone at all seniority ranges from content editors through to senior design managers; he's spoken at numerous conferences - and helped other speakers get their first gig. He's run one of the consistently best conferences I've ever been to as well - The Design & Content Conference.
A constant in Steve's professional work is his ability to bring people together, feel heard, and lift them up - whether at talks, or design projects, or user-research. everyone feels heard, and comes out of the experience better than they entered.
Steve’s calm and empathetic demeanor, practical nature, and years of experience have given him the nearly superhuman ability to dispense relevant, impactful, and actionable advice… on demand.
In the short time I worked for him, I benefited from these traits in nearly every interaction we had. That advice, in turn, benefited all designers on the team. He is truly a coach of coaches.
Steve is the type of design leader you want steering the ship. He thoughtfully balances pragmatism and empathy in his decision-making, and simultaneously emphasizes the need to continually move the organization forward in building consensus and gaining alignment. Steve prioritizes the critical human-focused business needs of breaking down silos, building team trust and cohesion, and empowering individuals to find the right level of autonomy. Ultimately Steve brings a lot of heart to his work, and it shows in both the results of his own efforts and in the productive relationships he builds throughout an organization.
Steve joined as our first head of design, and built out the design team so we could deliver to aggressive design goals. His design guidance and frameworks helped anchor the team and his mentorship of others outside his team guided our design eco-system. I appreciate his ability to create/drive culture within the larger organization, think through difficult design challenges and develop a part of who we've become.
We create enterprise technology... for retail store teams so the ability to clearly show and engage with a wide range of users is key. Imagine an 18 year old 7-11 Associate and a 70 year Eileen Fisher Associate. Steve helped set us down a path where design can be a competitive advantage.
Working with Steve over the past year I've learned from his ability to quickly build effective teams. From onboarding, a brand new team of talented product design professionals to championing the visual refresh of our entire product, Steve, is a leader at heart and he helps everyone around him do their best work every day. I have also been impressed by how he champions our remote-first culture with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. He is a great partner and I am lucky I get to work with him each and every day.
Steve has been a welcome addition to our design team at TELUS. As our principal designer, Steve motivates us not only to be better designers but to be better humans. He inspires us to do awesome and pushes us to want more awesomeness for ourselves.
He’s been a great mentor and helps us drive to our goals by providing us with leadership and strategic vision for our design, research and content practice. His positive outlook is contagious and he is always able to provide a different perspective or way of thinking in any given situation. He’s made a huge impact in our design practice and created a safe space at TELUS for inclusive design, diversity, creativity, and collaboration. Steve is just awesome sauce!
Steve's wealth of experience in the field of design has been an incredible guiding light for the TELUS Digital team. His strategic thinking and ability to see a challenge from different perspectives have enabled the Customer Experience team to address complex challenges in the areas of design, content and information architecture.
In addition to his domain expertise, Steve is one of the best leaders I have ever worked with. His empathy, intuition, calm demeanor and positive outlook inspire people to achieve their best, every day. Steve is a true champion of the safe and inclusive culture at TELUS, genuinely supporting every person on the team.
Steve makes you want to become a designer just so you can be a part of his team. During the 1.5 years we worked together, Steve played a significant role in leading the redesign efforts of Retail Zipline’s platform interface while growing a global design organization and fostering a collaborative, supportive environment.
Steve cares deeply about his team and his work. I was equally impressed with his genuine desire to help everyone, insatiable curiosity, and strong storytelling skills. Steve is the ultimate culture add and a thoughtful, people-first leader. ✨💖
Steve is a great design thinker, passionate about solving the business challenges of his customers and (this is a good thing) is personally invested in ensuring the right choice is made to solve a problem. Steve is always professional but takes his work so seriously it's personally important to him to get things right. Which is why his work is so good. He's great to work with and I'm always happy to put him in front of our customers because they think better of us when we do.