Design Leader · Business Operator

I see what needs building.
Then I build it.

No waiting for permission. No waiting for perfect.

Design Leader and Business Operator — framing the right problems and scaling teams to drive enterprise transformation.

Selected Work

Proof first. Then we pop the hood.

Each engagement leads with the outcome and the stakes. Click in for the real story — what was hard, where it pivoted, where I pushed back.

A top-five U.S. health system

Multiyear digital engagement

A new leadership team and a patchwork of legacy systems — and a live consumer mobile app on the other side.

Launched a live consumer mobile app for a new leadership team learning to build digital products on top of legacy tech.

Adoption8 locationsrolled out; live in the App Store

Efficiency~80%a 5-minute task cut to 45 seconds

Satisfaction+80% NPSin pilot · 83% employee satisfaction

Business impact$51Mprojected cost avoidance · $6M+ follow-on across 6 sell-on projects · 10/10 client review

A valued and trusted partner — a creative problem solver you could always count on.
— Global VP of Information Services, client sponsor

A large, multiyear engagement spanning pre-COVID to post-COVID. The leadership team was learning, in real time, how to build digital products and digital literacy — on top of a patchwork of legacy systems that didn't want to cooperate.

The hard part wasn't the build. It was the repeated high-pressure pivots — staying oriented while the ground moved, and keeping the team building toward something shippable instead of freezing.

Role & team

Brought on as the initial researcher, then grew into lead across all three phases — research, strategy, and product design. Led 250+ interviews across 8 locations and built 6 service blueprints with the client's Information Services group.

The key pivot

Turning a research engagement into a shipped product (consumer app + admin portal), then into an internal Center of Excellence so the client could keep building on their own.

A national homebuilder

Finance transformation

A finance-transformation prototype that aligned executives through a leadership transition.

Built a finance-transformation prototype (with a designer) used for executive alignment during a leadership transition. Multiyear engagement, large remit, working hand-in-hand with their internal teams.

Outcomes10×a 2-month due-diligence cycle cut to ~2 seconds; 30 FTEs → 3

Exec alignmentFull buy-inaligned executives through a leadership transition; shipped an enterprise platform plus a design system for their tech org

A prototype is a cheap way to have an expensive argument early. Instead of a deck about a future finance org, the leadership team had something to react to — which is how you get real alignment instead of polite nodding.

Deliverables & role

Design lead end-to-end; also built the client's design system. Shipped an agentic-AI platform spanning environmental analysis, financial modeling, competitive market analytics, 5-year projections, and land banking.

Outcome detail

Collapsed a two-month, 30-person due-diligence process into a ~2-second workflow — 10× efficiency, 30 FTEs to 3 — while keeping executives aligned through a leadership transition.

A regional U.S. health system

A new line of business

A prototype and immersive experience that won executive alignment to stand up an entirely new line of business.

Led — in partnership with the team running the joint-venture analysis — a prototype and immersive experience. That springboard secured executive alignment to stand up an entirely new line of business.

Scale of new LOBEnterprisea net-new virtual-care line of business, scaled across the care continuum

OutcomeGreenlitexecutive alignment won via an immersive futuring experience; clinical product strategy plus 3 sales prototypes (70+ interviews, 6 personas, 6 journey maps)

Our team collectively went from “this can never happen” to “it WILL happen, and we can be the ones making it happen.”
— client executive team, futuring session

The analysis said the opportunity was real. The immersive experience made executives feel it — close enough to touch to commit real money and a new org to it. That's the fork: from "interesting slide" to "we're doing this."

Her specific role

Design and research lead across research, futuring, and product strategy. Led 70+ patient and provider interviews, synthesized into 6 personas and 6 journey maps, shared weekly with client leadership.

Scale of the LOB

An entire new virtual-care enterprise — built to scale across the care continuum, on the cutting edge of virtual care.

A global consumer-imaging & retail brand

Futures, foresight & innovation · short engagement

Mapping white space against the hard reality of a physical retail footprint.

Short, sharp foresight work: explored white spaces and assessed value given the physical retail footprint of the stores — opportunity grounded in what actually exists, not a blue-sky wish list.

What it led to$167M–$279Mnear-term value identified ($4.0B–$8.9B long-term opportunity)

DeliverablesWhere-to-play strategywhitespace exploration across the digital-identity value chain — interrogating legal/regulatory, technology, and market-demand lenses to repurpose a global kiosk retail footprint into new markets

Futures work is easy to do badly — endless possibility, no constraints. The discipline here was tethering every white-space idea to the realities of physical stores, so the foresight stayed useful instead of fun-but-irrelevant.

A global technology company

Enterprise partner · active

A live sentiment-analysis and readiness-assessment system, designed and deployed inside a two-day workshop.

Active · deepening

Most recently designed and deployed a live sentiment-analysis + readiness-assessment system during a two-day workshop — real-time data visualization that showed executives partnership capability as it happened.

Workshop signalReal-time readoutlive sentiment + readiness, visualized for executives during a two-day workshop

Partnership outcomeActive · deepeninggrowing from the FD&E project into live sentiment analysis, plus RFIs, RFPs, and joint partnership planning

One delivered engagement, and now being tapped to support the account and pursuits more broadly. The move is deliberate: pivoting to be more account-aligned — less "vendor on a project," more "partner in the relationship."

Leadership

How I lead — and the receipts.

Four things I keep doing, at every scale. The evidence below maps across them.

Coach, not cop.

"I'm not here to tell people how to do their jobs, how to feel about them, or what's right. I'm here to help them figure out and unlock what's right for them."

Scaling & sustaining.

Moving capability out of myself and into the organization, so it outlives any one person.

Teaching.

Formalizing what I know and spreading it — curricula, frameworks, classes, mentoring.

Ego death & stewardship.

Building capacity so things run without me — and knowing when to step back and let them.

FoundingStewardshipEgo death

Prototype Pittsburgh

Co-founder · built zero-to-one

Co-founded a feminist makerspace and business incubator and built it from nothing — then built it to outlast its founders.

~100businesses through the incubator

100spaying coworking & makerspace members

Multilocations today, with Google funding

A city day is named after it. Both founders have since stepped away; a new executive director runs it independently. Built it, made it work, handed it off.

Building from constraintTeachingScaling

TechShop

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, EDUCATION

Two roles, three years, one fast-moving company learning how to scale. I came in to build the education program and left helping run marketing across the whole network — which is a fair summary of how I work: I go where the problem is.

40contract instructors hired & managed

+40%increase in diversity

↑programs, participation & new revenue

The honest part: The national parent overextended and filed for bankruptcy — but the local unit's fundamentals strengthened under my leadership. Local execution is not corporate strategy. confirm exact org name / spelling

Scaling & sustainingCoach, not cop

EY Studio+ UX Discipline

Creative Director / Senior Manager · in consulting

Leads a ~40-person UX discipline with ~8 direct reports — building culture and practices with no budget and no formal mandate, and helped grow the former digital health practice. The proof it's working: structured upward feedback from the team.

~40person UX discipline led

~8direct reports

~8people give structured annual upward feedback

“Despite having a large team of 8+ designers, Louise always made time for each of us — an invaluable mentor.”
— Designer, team upward feedback

“Her ability to connect the dots across strategy, design, and engineering has been key to ensuring we deliver valuable outcomes.”
— Senior Manager, EY

“We delivered a differentiated response largely because of Louise's contributions.”
— Engagement lead

“One of the smartest, most customer-centric Senior Managers I've worked with — a trusted advisor to both the client team and EY colleagues.”
— Senior Manager, EY

Teaching

Teaching & frameworks

Carnegie Mellon · internal classes · mentoring

Taught at Carnegie Mellon before and after a Master's in Design. Teaches internal classes, mentors, and builds the frameworks and curricula that turn personal know-how into something a whole team can use.

course names frameworks built curricula

In their words

What it's like on the other side of the table.

Overall, working with Louise has been exceptional. She has helped our team — and our organization — immensely.

Global VP of Information Services, client

A great understanding of client needs, an extremely effective presenter, and tremendous poise even when posed with tough questions.

EY Partner & Global Client Service Partner

A leader, player, coach, and team supporter all in one — she moves seamlessly between these roles for EY and for our clients.

EY Partner & counselor

A shining star of the design studio and beyond — she inspires clients and the research team with innovative thinking and a collaborative style that gets everyone onboard.

Senior Manager, Research

Louise is probably the best counselor I could imagine having.

Team member, upward feedback

About

I built this site with an AI design tool. On purpose.

A tool like that is a rules engine — logic, limits, defaults, strong opinions about what "good" looks like. Working inside it meant deciding, over and over, which rules to keep and which to break. Which is the whole job, honestly.

I've spent my career learning how systems work — their logic, their limits, the unwritten rules underneath the written ones — so I know when holding the line makes something better, and when breaking it does. The grid you're looking at, and the places it bends? That's the argument, made visible.

The thread is simple: I see what needs building, and I build it. I don't wait for perfect conditions or permission.

That's looked like a lot of things. A screen-printing shop in Missoula in my early twenties. An artist residency. Director of Education at a makerspace — hiring instructors, writing new curricula, building a blacksmith lab from nothing. Co-founding Prototype Pittsburgh, a feminist makerspace and business incubator that eventually outgrew me — which was the point. Teaching at Carnegie Mellon, before and after my Master's in Design. And seven-plus years in consulting, where I now lead a 40-person UX discipline and frame the kind of ambiguous, high-stakes problems most people would rather hand off.

Different scales, same work: make the fuzzy concrete, bring people together, and build the team that can carry it after I'm gone.

I lead like a coach, not a cop. I'm not here to tell people how to do their jobs — I'm here to help them find and unlock what's right for them. I believe technology and business should work for people, not the other way around. And I get my hands dirty. Every time.

Optimist. Builder. Dirty hands, clean heart. The title changes. The work stays the same.