Leadership

Building and Leading UX Organizations

I build and lead design organizations that operate as strategic partners to Product and Engineering—not service functions. My leadership focuses on clarity, trust, and accountability, enabling design to influence direction, shape decisions, and drive outcomes across marketplaces, monetization, and platform-scale systems.

Making UX a Strategic Partner

A core part of my leadership has been advocating for UX to have an equal seat at the table—in strategy, planning, and prioritization.

In practice, this meant:

  • Ensuring design and research were involved early, where they could shape outcomes

  • Framing user problems in ways that connected customer needs, business goals, and constraints

  • Participating in product leadership offsites to surface critical user problems and inform annual roadmaps

  • Establishing shared ownership of outcomes with Product and Engineering

My goal has consistently been to move UX from execution support to strategic partnership, grounded in trust and informed decision-making.

Designing Organizations, Culture, and Accountability

I believe high-performing teams don’t emerge by accident—they are intentionally designed.

I have focused on building UX organizations rooted in:

  • Psychological safety and trust, so teams can challenge ideas and raise concerns

  • Clear ownership and expectations, reducing ambiguity and friction

  • Constructive feedback and quality bars, reinforcing learning and craft

  • Respect for diversity, boundaries, and well-being, especially in distributed teams

To support this, I established clear norms around communication, feedback, decision ownership, and accountability—creating conditions where teams could operate with autonomy while maintaining high standards.

I believe high-performing teams don’t emerge by accident—they are intentionally designed.

I have focused on building UX organizations rooted in:

  • Psychological safety and trust, so teams can challenge ideas and raise concerns

  • Clear ownership and expectations, reducing ambiguity and friction

  • Constructive feedback and quality bars, reinforcing learning and craft

  • Respect for diversity, boundaries, and well-being, especially in distributed teams

To support this, I established clear norms around communication, feedback, decision ownership, and accountability—creating conditions where teams could operate with autonomy while maintaining high standards.

I believe high-performing teams don’t emerge by accident—they are intentionally designed.

I have focused on building UX organizations rooted in:

  • Psychological safety and trust, so teams can challenge ideas and raise concerns

  • Clear ownership and expectations, reducing ambiguity and friction

  • Constructive feedback and quality bars, reinforcing learning and craft

  • Respect for diversity, boundaries, and well-being, especially in distributed teams

To support this, I established clear norms around communication, feedback, decision ownership, and accountability—creating conditions where teams could operate with autonomy while maintaining high standards.

Selected artifacts below illustrate how this was done in practice.

UX as Strategic Partner

Authored and operationalized UX culture and collaboration principles to position UX as a peer to Product and Engineering in planning and decision-making.

→ Link to strategy document

Accountability & Ways of Working

Defined clear norms for ownership, feedback, decision rights, and cross-functional accountability across distributed teams.

→ Link to collaboration document

Research Integration

Established a research-to-decision operating model ensuring insights informed strategy, prioritization, and leadership reviews.

→ Link to research integration document

Hiring & Talent Bar

Contributed to leadership panels defining UX hiring standards, interview structures, and evaluation criteria for senior talent.

→ Link to hiring document

Executive & Cross-Functional Partnership

I partner closely with senior leaders across Product, Engineering, Finance, Risk, and GTM to shape direction and align on priorities.

My role has included:

  • Presenting to senior product and design leaders, including SLTs, to represent the work and impact of the India UX organization

  • Building shared understanding of job seeker and employer needs in India to inform product and market decisions

  • Influencing experience strategy and investment decisions through research-driven narratives

  • Helping teams navigate trade-offs between growth, quality, and long-term platform health

I also served on leadership panels defining UX hiring standards and interview processes, helping set expectations for senior design talent and organizational capability.

Community & Organizational Contribution

In addition to my organizational leadership, I contribute to the broader design community through mentoring and evaluation:

  • Designathon Judge — Lollypop Design Studio (2023)

  • Hackathon Judge — Indeed (regional and global) - 2023 & 2024

I’m most energized by leadership challenges where thoughtful structure, collaboration, and accountability unlock impact at organizational and platform scale. 🚀