Director of UX. Responsible for design direction across two large enterprise products. CDP and CDC. I inherited a team of five with no shared process and no influence over product decisions. I left with a design org of twelve that actually had a voice.
Design was functioning as a service. Screens produced as fast as possible & no discovery, no research, no shared way of working. Two products, millions of global users, and design had no seat at the table. The brief was to improve the experience. The real job was bigger than that.
Before changing anything, I listened. Product owners, development leads, understanding how they saw design before trying to shift it. Then I built the foundation: doubled the team, introduced discovery and research as standard, unified fragmented experiences, and built trust through consistency, not process rollouts.
Within a year, design moved from reactive to directional. From output to influence. A team of five became twelve. Two global products serving millions. More considered, more unified, and with a design function that had earned its place at the table.
