I joined Mozilla in late 2020 to lead UX, design, and research across a multidisciplinary team working on Hubs — Mozilla's social virtual reality platform. The broader organization was fully remote, the product team had navigated significant leadership transitions, and the design team had been through enough change to make anyone cautious about the next chapter.
Mozilla is not a typical tech company. It's a nonprofit that exists to serve the public interest online. The people who work there care deeply about the mission — which makes leadership in moments of uncertainty both more meaningful and more demanding. People weren't just worried about their jobs; they were worried about something they believed in.
The design team needed to feel like a design team again. That meant rebuilding trust, establishing clarity about how work gets done, and creating conditions where people could do their best work — while also delivering a complete product redesign on a real timeline. Those two goals aren't always in tension, but they require deliberate attention to both simultaneously.
The Hubs platform itself had real product work to do. Users needed a more structured, intuitive experience. The design team had the talent to deliver it — they just needed the operating environment and the confidence to move forward.
I started with one-on-ones. I listened more than I talked. I learned what was working, what wasn't, and what each person on the team needed to succeed — not what I assumed they needed based on the role, but what they actually needed based on who they were. Inclusive leadership isn't a policy. It's a practice that has to happen in individual conversations.
Then I rebuilt the operating model: structured weekly cadences, design sprints, leaner review processes, and clearer ownership at the individual level. I gave people autonomy and then I backed them — publicly, consistently, and in rooms where it mattered.
I championed a more intentional approach to cross-functional collaboration — bringing stakeholders into the design process earlier, running workshops that created alignment before work began rather than debate after it shipped. A significant amount of design rework is actually a collaboration problem, not a design problem.
On the product side, I directed the full redesign of Hubs: coordinating UX designers, researchers, and 3D artists across a complex, multi-disciplinary creative effort. I kept the team focused on the user, kept stakeholders aligned on priorities, and kept the work moving.
"Culture and delivery aren't in tension. When people feel supported and clear, they ship faster and better. I believe design management is fundamentally about creating trust — with the team, with partners, and with the people using what you build."
100% team retention over three years. In an industry where designer attrition is common, and in an organization navigating real uncertainty, every single person on my team was still there when I moved on. That doesn't happen by accident. It happens when people feel seen, supported, and clear about what they're building toward.
Delivery efficiency improved by 10% through the process improvements we made together — not through pressure, but through removing friction. The Hubs redesign shipped, delivering a more structured and intuitive user experience grounded in actual user research.
Perhaps most importantly: people wanted to stay and wanted to do the work. That's the outcome I'm most proud of from my time at Mozilla — more than any product metric.