My read me

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can summarize my philosophy as design professional, making sure that it reflects who I am as a person. I’ve landed on three main key points, but I’d like to consider them as part of an iterative process, like pretty much everything in life.

1- Trust: me, you, what we do

[me] I want people to trust me. I’m a great team player, I’m known for supporting my cross-functional partners, helping them navigate constraints and drive alignment with the design organization.

[you] I trust my team. I am here to inspire my team, I give them the autonomy to make it happen their way. I care about the personal and professional development of my team members. Having changed many countries, jobs and design fields, I know how important it is to have a clear vision. I want my team to have a clear mission, to feel they know how their work fits into the bigger picture, I want to be the source of stability and energy that powers my team through many tough design challenges.

[what we do] I make inclusive and trustworthy products. I advocate for accessibility and inclusion, I drive alignment across teams to ensure consistency and design quality.

2- Bias for action

As design manager for many venture bets at LinkedIn and IBM, I’ve experienced several conflicts between engineering, product, and design centered around the reconciliation between engineering efficiency and product quality. For this reason, I know how to proactively sit down with my cross-functional partners to work on their mutual values and to build effective principles for collaboration.

3- Flexible attitude

I’ve worked in many different design fields, and wore multiple design hats (from academic lecturer to design manager), I have lived in different Countries and I am an immigrant here. All of this shaped my flexibility. I can adapt to different challenges, solve needs for different audiences, fit to partners’ style and needs. I do all of this by helping my team feel a strong sense of belonging to the company’s mission. I want to make sure my designers have a clear picture of how their contribution matters.

My North Star pillars

I’ve also decided to reflect on my North Stars. What I refer to when I’m working, what I look forward to when I’m navigating unknown waters. I have had the privilege to work with some fantastic managers throughout my career, and I’ve crafted my pillars on what I’ve learned from them, and a variety of other sources. Hope this can benefit others as well, and I’m looking forward to hearing what keeps you grounded.

Show empathy - having worked for highly collaborative corporations, I know how to lead my team through multiple tough alignments. My diverse background helps me to put myself into the shoes of another team, to help ensure product, engineering, design and the other partners on all teams arrive at smooth alignments on complex, multi-faceted project.

Success through collaboration - I sustain my team with enthusiasm and positive encouragement, which paid dividends during the work-from-home period when we had to work far apart. During the 2020 pandemic, my team remained grounded and resilient, incredibly creative and productive despite the difficult circumstances. I also heavily invest in communication within the organization. I find allies, get people excited about my mission, show how our domains overlap, so that we can work together to get the job done with quality and consistency.

Understand the bigger picture - the system matters to me. I am often the one in the room asking how each individual piece integrates into the larger ecosystem. This helped me grow many “0 to 1 projects” into established, successful offerings. I am extremely motivated in nurturing new bets, but I am also skilled at spotting ecosystem conflicts upfront. I often ask questions such as How do these bets fit into the ecosystem? What’s the end-to-end vision? I’ve learned that it is better to think about these topics early in the process, to leave no stones unturned and to avoid tunnel vision.

Act like an owner - I expect, encourage and sponsor leadership from the IC in my team. I remind my team to act like an owner, nevertheless I work hard to make myself available for anyone that needs help, support or advice. I’m known to be a good listener and a kind person, but don't mistake that for not being engaged, passionate, or opinionated.

Invest in processes - I define myself as an organized, methodical person, and I reflect this into my work. I believe that effective processes help teams be more collaborative, therefore more productive, and I enjoy working on them when I see room for improvements. When I see that a collaboration is not working, or a process can be improved to make the team more effective, I invest time in it and I experiment with some changes, to empower collaboration and achieve great results.

Time matters - I am a huge champion of bullet points and action items, I will follow up to a meeting with a recap email. Expect weekly summaries and memos from me. Time is precious, and I want all of us to get the best out of it.