About me
What I do
I grow and inspire product design teams to deliver informed, effective, and beautifully crafted design solutions using my 15+ years of experience shipping successful digital products at Citigroup, TiVo, XBOX, Concur, and Amazon. I’ve launched consumer and business-facing websites, enterprise tools, TV interfaces, and mobile applications. And I’m just getting started!
Why I do it
In the early days of my career, Don Norman’s Design of Everyday Things armed my passion for Design with a lens through which I now view the world — the lens of Experience Design. There is an intrinsic drive to improve what exists and create what doesn’t.
I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing well. That’s why I sweat the details and insist on craftsmanship in Design. It’s why I value and seek out close collaboration with others. Because two brains is better than one.
I believe in taking care of people — family, friends, customers and employees. When you think of people, when you make them feel heard, when you help them solve their problems… they take care of you. I found fewer things more rewarding than encouraging and helping people be their very best.
The origin story
“Our hearts demand change”
I was born in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. In my early teens, my family and I immigrated to Brooklyn, NY in search of a better life. We did not yet speak English, but we learned fast.
Half way through college, where I majored in Computer Science, I fell in love with the Web and decided that I wanted to design and build websites. I learned Photoshop, HTML, CSS on my own and by the end of my Junior year had a full time job at a prominent design agency in New York City. I had found my calling.
After I completed my Master’s degree in Interaction Design and Information Architecture and moved to Silicon Valley, my career took off and I never looked back. I LOVE what I do.