Design leadership at the intersection of product, research, and delivery.

I’m Maria. I lead design decision-making for complex digital products, helping organizations align research, design, and delivery into clear, executable priorities.

How I work

01
Strategic design leadership
I set design direction at the intersection of research, systems thinking, and business strategy, establishing a coherent design vision that guides product and platform decisions at scale.

02
Design governance & decision frameworks
I define decision authority, governance models, and operating principles that ensure design judgment is consistently applied across teams, initiatives, and delivery horizons.

03
Executive & cross-functional alignment
I drive alignment across product, design, and engineering leadership by framing complex trade-offs, reducing decision ambiguity, and creating shared clarity at critical moments of change.

04
Design management at scale
I architect design operating models and design operations that connect strategy to execution, enabling teams to work effectively across organizational boundaries and evolving constraints.

05
Portfolio & systems-level prioritization
I steer portfolio priorities through systems thinking, balancing near-term outcomes with long-term platform health, capability building, and organizational resilience.

Companies I have worked with:

Disney_logo_client
MtSinai_hospital_logo
Indigo_logo_client
pfizer_logo_client
nyc_logo_client

My work

Disney+
Reducing cart attrition through research-led Design decisions

I led research and design decision-making to address cart attrition, translating behavioral insights into clear product choices that improved conversion while balancing business and design trade-offs.

Mount Sinai Hospital
Improving patient engagement through service-level Design decisions

I led service design efforts to diagnose systemic barriers to patient engagement and translate insights into practical changes that improved participation and care outcomes.

NYC & Company
Driving organizational change through systems-level Design

I led a systems-level realignment of teams, processes, and decision structures, enabling the organization to execute against outcomes rather than disconnected initiatives.

ResearchOps Playbook
Establishing a scalable research practice across cross-functional teams

I defined and implemented a ResearchOps framework to democratize research across planning, delivery, and iteration, embedding shared standards that enabled Product Managers, Engineers, and Designers to consistently generate, interpret, and act on user insights as part of day-to-day product decisions.

pointB (Myanmar)
Directing social innovation through structured Design leadership

I led the design of workforce and HR frameworks that addressed employment readiness and hiring decision gaps as Myanmar transitioned from dictatorship to democratic governance. I engaged local students through structured design thinking and facilitation to ensure the solutions were grounded in local realities and could be adopted in practice.

CL Design System
Evolving a Design System into a strategic product asset

I led the transformation of a fragmented design toolkit into a governed, scalable system, establishing standards and decision ownership that improved consistency, reduced duplication, and accelerated high-quality product decisions.

  • “Maria is a fantastic design leader and advocates for design thinking, research, and high-value operational excellence for any team... she was able to drive alignment to an impactful path forward to align our design system with our product, UX, and technology goals.”

    — Ian Muirhead, Strategic Product & Design Leadership

  • “Maria has a rare blend of creativity, warmth, and strategic thinking. Her ability to see the big picture while attending to the finest details is exceptional.”

    — Alan Cunnane, Consulting Project & Product Manager

  • “Maria is the kind of creative partner who elevates every team she works with. Her ability to combine strategy, design, and human insight creates clarity and momentum where it matters most.”

    — Russ Stothers, Director of Product Management, Copperleaf Technologies

  • “Maria led the UX initiative with well-thought-out user flows, optimizations, and mockups. Her deep understanding of design made the platform meaningfully more successful.”

    — Morgan Tiley, Director of Engineering

  • “Maria’s thorough research, digital expertise, and ability to clearly translate findings into recommendations brought the project to a successful close.”

    — Menka Uttamchandani, Analytics & Insights

On working

Featured
Scaling Design Operations: Why More Process Creates Less Productivity
Scaling Design Operations: Why More Process Creates Less Productivity

Every design team celebrates the moment they finally get organized. File naming conventions are established, review processes are documented, project management tools are implemented. It feels like order emerging from chaos, until your team doubles in size and suddenly designers spend more time managing tools than creating solutions.

This is the challenge of design operations at scale: the very processes that enable coordination can become barriers to productivity when your organization outgrows them.

The Perfect Tool Stack That Solved Nothing
The Perfect Tool Stack That Solved Nothing

A design team I worked with had achieved tool nirvana. Every designer used Figma for design files, every ticket lived in Jira, every workshop happened in Miro. We had consistent file naming conventions, standardized ticket formats, and shared template libraries. Our tool stack was perfectly aligned.

We also had engineers building features that didn't match the designs, product managers creating requirements that contradicted user research, and designers making decisions in isolation from technical constraints. In short, our tools were unified but our work remained fragmented.

Breakthroughs in the Blur: Why "Unclear" Thinking Sometimes Leads to Innovation
Breakthroughs in the Blur: Why "Unclear" Thinking Sometimes Leads to Innovation

I've watched the same dynamic play out across countless organizations: Someone brilliant in a casual chat—the type who effortlessly connects user research to technical decisions to business strategy—sits in a meeting and turns into a buzzword generator.

"The conversion metrics indicate potential UX friction that may impact our strategic KPIs."

What they actually meant: "This feels like trying to order coffee from someone who's never had coffee."

The Spice Jar Rebellion: How I Created a Beautiful Carousel of Confusion
The Spice Jar Rebellion: How I Created a Beautiful Carousel of Confusion

A few weeks ago, I did something that seemed perfectly logical: I threw out every mismatched spice jar in my cabinet and replaced them with uniform glass containers and matching labels.

Organizational Vinyasa: What Yoga Sequencing Teaches About Communication at Scale
Organizational Vinyasa: What Yoga Sequencing Teaches About Communication at Scale

Halfway through my yoga teachers’ training, I had an embarrassing revelation: I'd been randomly throwing challenging positions together and hoping people wouldn't get injured.

Watching my instructor demonstrate a well-designed vinyasa flow, I noticed how elegantly she sequenced the flow such that each pose prepared the body for the next one. Hip openers before backbends. Gentle twists before deeper rotations. She designed it in a way that the sequence served the practice, not the other way around.