About
I work at the intersection of product design and strategy — helping organizations turn complex problems into products, brands, and systems that connect people to information, experiences, and each other. Over 15 years, I've done this across fintech, biotech, healthcare, publishing, dev tools, and civic tech, often as the person bridging business goals, engineering constraints, and user needs.

I've worked at the New York Times, Google's Creative Lab, and Nestlé, and for dozens of startups — several acquired, including Tilt, ENSO Financial, and TrustYou. I also co-created the Community Canvas, a framework used by over 200,000 community builders worldwide, and teach interaction design at SVA.

I operate as both strategist and maker — leading product direction, aligning cross-functional teams, and running design sprints and workshops, while also building prototypes and production apps with AI tools. The best products come from aligning teams around a clear vision and iterating with intention.
Experience
Highlights

As founder of Office for Visual Affairs, I partner with startups and organizations to turn complex challenges into clear strategies and compelling experiences. My work spans branding, product management, and design – helping teams articulate their value and build products that resonate.

Select list of clients: Abiomed, Adobe, AirBnB, Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce, Centric Digital, Chess.com, City Atlas, CUNY, Code Ocean, Contently, curefab, DataMonster, Dylan Ratigan, Early Career Women Collective, ENSO, Google, Grameen America, Holstee, Independent Diplomat, Innoleaps, IOVIA, KIND, Lolly Wolly Doodle, NBC Universal, Nestlé, New Lab Ventures, New York Times, NYU, Nielsen Business Media, Pittsburgh International Airport, Pluto.tv, Princeton Review, StackExchange, StartUp Health, The ImPact, Tilt, Time Inc., TrustYou, UNFPA, Unlock, Urtak, News Corp, WayCount.

Open Dollar is a stablecoin lending protocol that introduced Non-Fungible Vaults, enabling users to borrow OD stablecoins against their staked Ethereum.

Led brand, product design working closely with leadership and engineering. Facilitated the name finding and brand design as a company wide effort. Established design principles and processes to streamline development collaboration. Defined features and requirements together with engineering and iterated on product releases. Designed and built landing pages in Webflow, as well as the interactive data visualization for Non-Fungible Vaults using SVG, JavaScript and CSS.

A microservice development toolkit for engineering teams that automates development environment setup and processes. Acquired by Docker.

Directed identity, visual and animation design as well as brand guidelines for the re-brand. Worked on product design in collaboration with project managers and lead engineers, creating an interactive CLI interface for real-time status, logs, and reports. Designed and launched a new landing page and educational YouTube channel.

As co-author, I developed a comprehensive 60-page framework that has become a leading resource for community building, providing clear strategies for fostering engagement and long-term growth. Adopted by organizations ranging from global nonprofits to leading universities, it has been translated into 15 languages and used by over 300,000 community builders worldwide. Its impact spans grassroots initiatives to Fortune 500 companies, helping communities thrive through proven, actionable strategies.

Nestlé’s internal innovation group focused on ideating, pitching, and building employee-led product and services.

Led cross-functional teams to conceptualize, design, pitch and launch apps and products, including an on-demand delivery service for Nespresso and a loan tracking app for cacao farmers in Ghana.

A provider of analytics and insights for fund managers, recognized as the “Most Innovative Web App” by Hedge Fund Magazine, later acquired by NEX Group (formerly ICAP).

Lead the re-brand and brand guidelines creative direction as well as the landing page design. Worked on the design of the fintech product from inception to implementation. I collaborated with analysts and engineers to draw up requirements, understand the nuanced complexities of the platform and translate the information dense analytics into a user-friendly and interactive interface. Worked with the ENSO from 15 to 60 employees and through its acquisition.

Worked across digital, motion, and print projects for Google's Creative Lab. Led the design of the Nexus One Style Guide, establishing comprehensive branding guidelines from spacing to point-of-sale elements. Contributed to the Chrome browser campaign, concepting online and TV advertisements and producing short films and animations.
Select Clients
Projects
2025 & 2026

Crossword Generator: Web app that auto-generates complete crosswords from a few user-provided words, including clues, with optional LLM-powered hint generation. Feb 2026

Yello: Personal CRM that combines LinkedIn data, emails, and chats into unified contact profiles. (In development). Feb 2026

Wasup: Flutter macOS app that analyzes WhatsApp group chats using Gemini to summarize conversations and community stats. Jan 2026

PIT FIDS: Live web prototype of Pittsburgh Airport's flight information displays, pulling real-time data from flight APIs. Dec 2025

Daily Pods: Spotify podcast playlist generator that creates a daily queue of new episodes from your subscriptions. Dec 2025

Curious Events: A discovery platform that collects and curates cultural events across NYC venues. Nov 2025

The World You Want: Civic micro-platform where people post and upvote ideas for collective vision setting and change making. Sept 2025

Make Public: Curated collection of manifestos exploring public commitments and declarations from art to politics. Aug 2025

Mac Quick Actions: macOS context menu image conversion utility Jul 2025

Signals: Discussion group that explores themes like trust, play, and reinvention through open-ended prompts to challenge assumptions and sharpen critical thinking. Feb 2025

Education
2005 - 2008
The Cooper Union, New York City
BFA Communication Design
2003 - 2005
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
1984 - 2002
German Schools in Ethiopia, Thailand, Germany and Egypt
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And Some Extra text — Max Planck