Transforming Design into Business Strategy: A Practical Guide for Middle Managers and Senior ICs
The real battleground for design influence isn’t the C-suite—it’s middle management. As a design leader, you shape how design is perceived, prioritized, and funded within your organization. But to drive real business impact, you must move beyond usability and tie design to KPIs, revenue, and efficiency. Learn how to position design as a business driver, not just a service.
Pruning for Growth: The Art and Discipline of Critique in a Remote World
Great critique is like pruning a bonsai—done with care, it strengthens ideas without stifling creativity. In a remote world, feedback must be intentional, structured, and inclusive. This article explores the roots of critique, a framework for thoughtful feedback, and how to cultivate a thriving critique culture in distributed teams. 🌳
Balancing Speed and Safety: Building Trust in Expansion Mode
In high-growth organizations, psychological safety is the foundation for innovation and high performance. When teams feel safe to take risks and learn from failure, they create, not just execute. I explore five key strategies to build trust while scaling: Curiosity Over Perfection, Guardrails, Not Roadblocks, Two-Way Feedback, Shared Ownership, and Intentional Pauses. When teams feel safe, they push boundaries and drive impact.
Building Bridges to Make an Impact as a New Leader
Starting a new leadership role in design can be both exciting and challenging. As a new leader, it’s essential to build strong connections between design and business objectives, while shaping a vision that aligns with the company’s mission. In my latest article, I share my approach to creating impact in a new organization by focusing on aligning design with business goals, fostering collaboration, and empowering emerging leaders. Whether you’re stepping into a leadership role or scaling a design team, these strategies will help you navigate the transition and drive lasting change in your organization. Read on to discover how you can build bridges for success and set the foundation for impactful design leadership.
Your Career Is a Recipe: The Design of Mastery, Balance, and Growth
Growing up in India, kitchens were my classrooms, where resilience, creativity, and preparation were stirred into life lessons. Watching women transform simple ingredients into unforgettable meals taught me the power of intention. Today, as a design leader, I see parallels between cooking and crafting careers—both require vision, adaptability, and a balance of skills to create something meaningful and impactful.
Designers: The Cost-Effective Consultants Hiding in Plain Sight
Parenting has been one of my greatest teachers in design leadership. It’s shown me how to navigate complexity, foster resilience, and balance empathy with structure. Much like guiding teams, parenting is about understanding context, building trust, and embracing imperfection as part of growth. These lessons continue to shape how I lead with purpose and design impactful solutions in an ever-changing world.
Unlocking Talent Excellence - Tips for Senior Managers to Hire the Best Talent
Discover strategies for senior managers to hire exceptional talent with empathy, foresight, and structured methodologies. From defining the ideal candidate profile to crafting thoughtful offers, this guide explores inclusive job descriptions, dynamic interview processes, and best practices for onboarding. Equip yourself with tools and insights to build high-performing teams and elevate organizational success.
The Superpower of a Strong Design Team: Driving Growth and Transformation
A strong design team is more than aesthetics—it’s a strategic growth driver. By uniting silos, simplifying complexity, humanizing innovation, and accelerating decisions, design connects human needs with business goals. Companies prioritizing design see increased customer retention, stronger brand equity, faster time-to-market, and seamless cross-functional alignment. Design isn’t optional; it’s essential.
What Design Leaders Can Learn from Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t a designer, but his leadership offers timeless lessons for design leaders. From crafting a vision rooted in purpose to fostering inclusivity and leading with empathy, his principles align deeply with human-centered design. By embracing resilience, thinking systemically, and empowering teams, design leaders can honor his legacy while shaping a more inclusive future.
Cultivating Leadership Through Key Meetings
In this post, I share three essential meetings every Design leader should prioritize: Daily Design Reviews, Skip-Level One-on-Ones, and Cross-Functional Experience Reviews. These meetings foster alignment, transparency, and leadership within design teams, empowering senior managers and ensuring continuous feedback, growth, and collaboration throughout the design process.
Embedding Customer-Centricity into the DNA of Your Organization
Organizations must adopt a holistic view of the customer journey to embed customer-centricity. Design leaders align teams around a shared vision, integrating feedback and fostering collaboration. This approach drives growth, enhances brand loyalty, and reduces operational costs by proactively addressing issues across touchpoints, creating long-term value for customers and the business.
Harnessing Diversity: Lessons from a Design Leader
Resilience is forged through experience, shaped by challenges, and strengthened by the richness of our identities. As an immigrant and design leader, navigating new environments and adapting to unfamiliar cultures have been my greatest teachers, honing my ability to empathize with diverse contexts and build thoughtful, high-performing teams.
Lessons on Leadership I learned from my first manager
Jean Cattell, my first design manager and a legendary Director of Design at The Field Museum, profoundly shaped my journey as a designer and leader. Through her fierce advocacy, high standards, and human-centered approach to leadership, Jean taught me lessons that continue to guide me today. In this tribute, I reflect on her impact and share three timeless principles she embodied: fostering autonomy to build belonging, understanding the power of contribution to drive performance, and setting the tone for good behavior. Read on to discover how Jean's legacy can inspire design leaders and teams to thrive.
Gaining credit - Our design journey into expanding Venmo
In this case study, I take you behind the scenes of the Venmo Credit Card launch, exploring how we transformed user insights into a product that seamlessly integrated into Venmo’s ecosystem. From balancing simplicity with powerful functionality to aligning cross-functional teams around a shared vision, this journey highlights the strategic decisions, creative problem-solving, and design principles that made the Venmo Credit Card a success. Dive into the challenges we faced, the lessons learned, and the impact of a user-centered approach in redefining how Venmo users connect with their finances.