How I Operate
Process, leadership, and change that actually sticks.
This is my strongest differentiator for a Director role, not a philosophy on a slide, but frameworks that have been built, adopted org-wide, and measured. Here’s how the work gets done.
What Global Manufacturing Gave Me
Firsthand fluency in how things are actually made.
Working directly in China, Turkey, Mexico, and the UK gave me something a domestic-only career can’t replicate. I’ve stood on factory floors watching knitting machines run, walked printing lines in three languages of instruction, and pulled apart upholstery on the bench with the people who build it. That depth changes what I bring to a design role in three specific ways.
Design with production in mind
When I sketch a construction detail, I already know which machine will run it, the realistic tolerance, and where the cost hides. Fewer surprises in sampling, fewer revisions, a shorter path to shelf.
Teach the team the same way
My designers learn why a border wraps the way it does and what a supplier can and can’t do without a tooling change, so they make confident decisions instead of deferring them upstream.
Build processes that hold
My frameworks are grounded in a “right first time” principle: less rework, less scrap, tighter timelines, lower landed cost, because they were built by someone who understood the making before writing the steps.
Leadership Philosophy
The three things a leader has to excel at.
Clarity
Not communication, clarity. Ambiguity is the tax a team pays when a leader hasn’t done their job. So I write things down, I repeat myself without embarrassment, and I build frameworks, because a designer with a clear process has permission to take creative risks. Clarity is a form of respect.
Judgment
At a certain level no one hands you the right answer. You’re paid for the calls only you can make. I’ve built my judgment the slow way (factory floors, three patents that started as bets, a framework I built because the old one wasn’t working) and learned which decisions deserve fast instinct and which deserve to be slowed down.
Developing people
The one I care about most. My job as a Director isn’t to do more design, it’s to make everyone around me do better design. I give people work slightly beyond what they think they can handle, protect them while they figure it out, and give credit publicly. A year from now, I want my team measurably better because they worked with me.
Tugboat / Speedboat
The 11-step NPI process.
Eleven stages from first brief to final paperwork. The light stages are working sessions that feed four major deliverables, the milestones where the product actually takes shape.
Why I built it
Before the framework, there literally was no process. Every project went to all suppliers with no strategy on who or why. It was hunt-and-gather: throw a wide net, present options, ask “what do you think?” We’d get all the way to physical samples and the room would just hate it, so we’d start over. That process took 18 months on average. Today, following Tugboat/Speedboat, we’re at 9 to 12, and we can flex faster or slower by the importance of the project.
Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. Process is an evolution, not a monument.
The step people underestimate
Planning & RACI, up front.
People consistently underestimate identifying the actual decision-makers before work begins. So I built a structured RACI directly into the front end (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) defined before work starts.
In furniture, launch dates don’t move. Miss a milestone like design lock and you’re not just late, you compress everything downstream into a smaller bucket of time, which almost always costs more: overtime, expedited freight, less negotiation leverage. The RACI isn’t just clarity, it’s risk management for the one thing you can’t get back: time before design lock.
Change-Management Playbook
Change sticks when people help build it, not when it’s handed to them.
Co-create with an open invite
Structured brainstorm sessions that intentionally cross levels (leadership and the people doing the work day-to-day) so the framework isn’t imposed, it’s owned. People invest in what they help create.
Earn trust through a real result
I asked leadership to extend trust based on track record while I demonstrated it on a real, measurable problem, not a framework on paper.
Close the loop with validation
Here’s what we planned together, here’s what we implemented because you trusted the process, here’s the result. That loop turns a one-time win into an adopted standard.
Proof · SKU Reduction
The org had a KPI to reduce SKU count 5% annually that it had never hit. I built a four-part plan: separate best from worst performers by volume, cut and combine overlapping trims, require any new SKU to serve three-plus projects, and set drop dates so materials had a defined end-of-life.
First 30 / 60 / 90 Days
Assess → Align → Act → Reinforce.
Assess
Observe and listen, but structurally: 1:1s with the team and cross-functional partners, review of process and data, and explicitly asking “what would you change if you could?” Surfaces quick wins and landmines at once.
Align
Before changing anything, socialize what you’re seeing. Share a “here’s what I’ve learned” readout with the team and boss, building trust and letting people correct your read before you act.
Act
Sequence changes: quick wins first (low-risk, visible, credibility-building), then structural change once trust is earned.
Reinforce
Revisit and communicate what changed and why, tying it back to what you heard in phase one. Change wasn’t top-down fiat.
In practice · Serta Simmons Bedding
Stepping into the Aesthetic Design leadership role, I inherited a team and process that had grown organically: no standardized NPI process and visible frustration about timeline unpredictability. I spent the first weeks doing structured listening, synthesized it into a “here’s what I’m seeing” readout, and shared it back before changing anything. Then I sequenced: small, visible wins first to build trust, before the bigger structural piece: the 11-step framework. Because the team had been heard and had seen me act on smaller things first, adoption was fast rather than resisted. It’s since been adopted org-wide.
Supplier Evaluation
Cost and quality tell you how a supplier has performed, not how they’ll partner.
Beyond the standard metrics, I treat key suppliers like an extension of my team and ask three questions, framed as a SMART-goal conversation. The value isn’t in the answers, it’s in the specificity. Weaker partners answer vaguely; stronger partners name exactly what matters, how they’ll measure it, and where they see real opportunity.
What matters most to you as a supplier working with us?
At the end of the year, how will you measure success with us?
What’s one specific area you want to grow in?
Proof · A Dedicated Supplier
A dedicated supplier leaned into that feedback process harder than almost anyone, listened closely and partnered with real intent. Over a year, their share of our assortment grew dramatically. And because the partnership was so aligned, their sampling volume actually went down, we were getting it right earlier instead of iterating repeatedly.
Feedback Sessions
By the time we hit a formal review, it’s not a reveal.
Feedback runs on two tracks. Team-level feedback happens with the whole team; individual feedback is just them and me, candid, no audience. Recognition flips the rule entirely, I want it as loud and visible as possible.
Every week I email another leader when one of their people did something above and beyond, even if they don’t report to me. And I keep a Shout Out Wall outside my office. I don’t wait for a scheduled review to give feedback, so a full-year review should never contain a surprise. If it does, I’ve failed as a leader.
Why La-Z-Boy
I’m looking for bigger shoes to fill: the structure and discipline I built here is done and working, and this is the scale I want to build it at next.