top of page

Design Leadership

I love to deeply understand organization needs and build design teams around them. I love to find, hire and mentor talent. I love to push designers to deliver bold, beautiful and meaningful experiences that address customers' needs and resonate with their hearts. I love to unleash designers on tough business challenges to drive meaningful results. And I want to have a positive impact on our planet.

I currently lead a global design team of 50 designers, leaders, and customer advocates focused on shared services that power Intuit's artificial intelligence strategy. I co-lead Intuit's design community, driving our design culture in partnership with a diverse team of design leaders.

I am also an advisor for Dallas-based start-up, Kanarys, which uses benchmark data to help companies define and address their DEI challenges. I have previously worked for traditional and digital advertising agencies and mobile consultancies all over Dallas.

I continue to lend my experience to students at SCAD, SMU, UTD, and UNT and mentor designers at all levels through ADPList. I'm a graduate of the Visual Communications program at the University of Delaware.

IMG_9591_edited.jpg
Home: About

Leadership Experiences

Building a killer design team. Building a prototyping culture. Building awareness and appreciation for design. Connecting with and learning from our customers to solve their wickedest problems. Delivering design at scale for our AI-Driven Expert Platform. Shaping the brand that communicates our value to customers.

DesignWeeks17 (1).jpg
sprout_steps.tif
IMG_9003.HEIC

Designing the Team to Design the Product & Marketing

I've spent 6 years recruiting, hiring, managing and retaining top talent. I did so by building a diverse pipeline, adopting a killer recruiting process and sweating the details to create a space and a culture where creativity thrives.

Making to Think, to Learn, to Tell a Story

I'm a huge believer that making prototypes is good for designers and non-designers. Making engages a more tangible part of your brain - and lends tangibility to the ideas we agree with in principle, but question the specifics. Prototypes drive behavior - and what people DO trumps what they say they'll do.

A site-wide celebration of Human Centered Design

In June 2015, I launched the first Design Week at Intuit, Plano. It has evolved into one of the most anticipated weeks of the year for our team - and always affords a variety of experts, experiences and opportunities to speak, make and learn.

Screen Shot 2022-06-21 at 6.07.59 PM.png
Screen Shot 2020-03-14 at 5.38.06 PM.png
Screen Shot 2021-07-20 at 1.42.28 PM.png

Platform Capability Design

Designing for re-use. Considering the Customer-facing experiences, the data we'll use to tailor them to our customers and the under-the-hood developer experience that makes them adoption-ready, off the shelf.

The Why, What and How of the Intuit Design System

The Intuit Design System's mission is to deliver data-guided Design & Code to accelerate and unify our AI-Driven expert platform.

Frameworks & Mindsets

Scaling design impact at Intuit through frameworks, experiments and talent development

Screen Shot 2021-07-20 at 2.31.55 PM.png
james[1].png
tdsqjkhlgnw667k2rnfo.webp

I've worked hard to develop a talent strategy that delivers resilience.

Three dynamics I lean into: Creating a magnetic culture, changing the trajectory of designers' careers, and being explicit with paths for succession, promotion and mobility.

Helping Early Career designers find their calling, their voice and their feet.

If you would like to spend 30 min discussing your portfolio, your ambitions and your options, you can find me and schedule an appointment on https://www.adplist.org/ 

Showtime Sync

This Emmy-nominated app paired Showtime's live and streaming content with second-screen polls, teasers and other interactive moments designed to heighten and extend the experience.

Home: Projects

What I'm writing about

I use Medium to write periodic observations on what I'm thinking about and what I'm doing about what I'm thinking about. Generally I focus on information I hope will be helpful to designers and aspiring designers. I've included links to some of my most read and shared articles here.

Home: Text
Home: Work

Listen

Screen Shot 2021-09-08 at 6.01_edited.jpg
Screen Shot 2021-09-08 at 6.02.01 PM.png
Screen Shot 2021-09-08 at 5.53_edited.jpg
Screen Shot 2021-09-08 at 6.05_edited.jpg

Jered O Show: Episode #007 with James Helms

Jered and I discuss design leadership, emotional design and making accounting interesting.

LIFTOFF: UX Outside the Box (w/ VP of Design at Intuit, James Helms)

Tony and I cover my role at SMU, Cafe Momentum as a case study for design thinking, how human centered design has lead to some of Intuit's biggest innovations, and more.

The Way of Product Design: 32 - James Helms, VP of Design @ Intuit - "Your co-workers are your portfolio"

Caden and I discuss my role at Intuit and lessons learned as I made the transition from individual contributor in agencies/consultancies to leadership for Intuit.

What is UX? S2E6 An interview with James Helms, VP of Design and Product, Intuit Platform

Pek and I discuss Intuit's business strategy, and the role that design and innovation has played in creating some of our most important and lucrative products.

Home: News
Screen Shot 2020-03-13 at 7.32.37 PM.png

Give me a shout!

Talk to you soon!

Home: Contact
bottom of page