Design Systems Strategist & Hands-On Architect of Excellence.

As a Design Systems Strategist and hands-on Architect with over two decades of experience, I've dedicated my career to the strategic intersection where Product Strategy, Product Design (UX/UI), and Front-end Code converge. My focus is on architecting, leading, designing, building, and scaling high-impact Design Systems that empower organizations. I thrive on creating the foundational frameworks for companies like CVS Health, Citizens Bank (where I spearheaded 0-to-1 systems), and BlackLine, enabling them to deliver consistent, accessible, and high-quality digital experiences efficiently.

Design Systems are my superpower 🦸‍♂️⚡

My Hybrid Approach: Bridging Design, Code & Strategy

My unique hybrid background in Product Strategy, Product Design (UX/UI), and Front-end Code Implementation allows me to operate effectively across these domains, truly acting as the 'glue' between disciplines. I'm often both the strategic Lead setting the vision and the core hands-on Product Designer/UX Engineer meticulously crafting the components and ensuring their flawless implementation. This holistic, systems-thinking approach, rooted in deep craftsmanship, ensures the solutions I build are not just elegant and user-centered but also practical, maintainable, scalable, and readily adopted by both design and engineering teams.

Core Expertise

My work focuses on the full design system lifecycle, encompassing:

• ✅ Strategy & Product Definition: Defining compelling system visions and strategic roadmaps aligned with overarching product goals and business objectives. Expertly gathering requirements from diverse stakeholders, translating needs into clear user/job stories for incremental feature delivery, performing systemic audits to identify foundational gaps or opportunities, and planning phased rollouts and adoption strategies across complex product ecosystems.
• ✅ Scalable Architecture & Governance: Architecting robust, scalable, and themeable system foundations, primitives, comprehensive component libraries, and clear, reusable patterns. Establishing detailed design token systems and strategies (for color, typography, spacing, etc.) and implementing pragmatic governance models (contribution workflows, versioning, quality control) that ensure consistency while fostering collaboration and evolution.
• ✅ Design-to-Code Mastery & Parity: Mastering the end-to-end creation and meticulous synchronization of design tokens, visual foundations, components, and interactive patterns across design tools (Figma, Sketch) and multi-platform Front-end Code (HTML, CSS, JS/TS across frameworks like React, Angular, Vanilla JS, etc.). Meticulously crafting parallel APIs for both design assets and coded components, ensuring pixel-perfect parity and design fidelity through rigorous hands-on QA, detailed code reviews (PRs), and direct code/styling contributions when needed to accelerate progress and maintain quality.
• ✅ Accessibility (A11y) & Inclusive Design: Championing and embedding WCAG standards and inclusive design principles deeply within the system's core architecture, component design, and documentation from the outset, ensuring the system enables the development of accessible products by default for all users.
• ✅ Cross-Functional Collaboration & Enablement: Fostering seamless, collaborative partnerships between Design, Engineering, and Product teams. Driving system understanding and adoption across large organizations through the creation of clear, actionable documentation, targeted training sessions, well-defined contribution models, and proactive support.
• ✅ Hybrid Leadership & Impact Measurement: Leading effectively both strategically (defining vision, managing roadmaps, establishing governance) and through deep hands-on contribution, mentorship of designers and engineers, and fostering a culture of design excellence. Focused on demonstrating the tangible ROI and business value of design systems through measurable improvements in development efficiency, team velocity, product consistency, and overall quality.

My Philosophy & Principles

I approach design systems not as static libraries, but as living, interconnected ecosystems. True success lies in understanding how every element – from the strategic vision down to the coded implementation of a component variant – impacts the whole. Operating with meticulous attention to detail and a systems-thinking mindset allows me to anticipate dependencies and ensure harmony across the entire product development lifecycle. My work is guided by these core principles:

• 🧭 Pixel-Perfect Parity: Design specifications must translate flawlessly into code, reducing ambiguity and development friction. I champion rigorous processes, parallel API design, and hands-on QA to ensure absolute fidelity between Figma/Sketch and front-end implementation.
• 🧭 Accessibility by Design: Inclusive experiences are non-negotiable, ensuring broader market reach and compliance. WCAG standards are embedded from the foundation up, ensuring the system enables accessible product development by default.
• 🧭 Pragmatic Governance: Systems need clear rules to maintain quality and scale effectively, but must also empower teams. I focus on establishing practical contribution models and standards that balance consistency with flexibility, encouraging adoption and fostering innovation.
• 🧭 Deep Collaboration: Effective systems are built with, not for, users (designers and developers). Fostering strong partnerships, open communication, and shared ownership between Design, Engineering, and Product is paramount.
• 🧭 Craftsmanship & Quality: Beyond functionality, I believe in building robust, maintainable, usable, and well-documented components and foundations that stand the test of time and scale.

Ultimately, a successful system elevates the end-user experience and drives tangible business value through quality, consistency, and efficiency.

Experience Highlights

• 🚀 Driving Enterprise-Scale Impact Across 4 Design Systems: As the strategic lead and primary hands-on designer/architect, I successfully delivered 4 distinct enterprise-scale design systems end-to-end. This involved defining the vision, architecting scalable foundations, meticulously designing components, and overseeing implementation across diverse tech stacks (React, Angular, Vanilla JS, etc.) and complex domains (FinTech/Healthcare). These systems consistently supported large cross-functional teams (up to 60 Designers, 200+ Engineers, 40+ PMs), accelerating design and development velocity by an average of 24-30%, while significantly improving product quality, UI/UX consistency, and WCAG accessibility through robust governance and adoption strategies.
• 🚀 Decades of Hands-On Craft: 400+ Components & Patterns: Throughout my 20+ year career, I've personally architected, designed, and/or technically implemented hundreds (400+) of accessible and responsive components and patterns. My deep, hands-on expertise lies in mastering the synchronization between design tools (Figma, Sketch) and multi-framework front-end codebases. This includes crafting parallel APIs and leveraging design tokens to ensure pixel-perfect parity, long-term maintainability, and comprehensive WCAG compliance.
• 🚀 Building from Zero: Launching the Citizens Bank Design System: Successfully spearheaded the 0-to-1 creation and enterprise-wide adoption of the Citizens Bank Design System. As the lead and primary hands-on designer and front-end developer for this initiative, I defined the initial vision, strategy, and foundational visual language (including design tokens), personally architecting and implementing the core component library from scratch within a complex stakeholder environment. Crucially, I also drove adoption by developing comprehensive onboarding programs, interactive workshops, and clear contribution models. My focused evangelism and collaborative approach fostered a culture of shared ownership, leading to a significant shift from disparate UIs to a unified standard where no centralized system previously existed.

Beyond the Pixels

Based near Worcester in Charlton, MA, when I step away from the world of design systems, I love to recharge and explore other passions:

• ⛰️ Outdoor Adventures & Mountain Air: You'll often find me hiking the diverse landscapes of New England – exploring trails in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, sometimes with our dogs. I also love to travel for snowboarding, having hit the slopes in places like Whistler-Blackcomb and Colorado.
• 🏋️‍♂️ Fitness & Discipline: Staying active is crucial for me. I've trained in martial arts most of my life and practice Muay Thai daily, complemented by daily cardio (jump rope, cycling) and weight training.
• 🍺 Local Discoveries & Entertainment: My wife and I enjoy discovering local breweries and restaurants on weekends. I also unwind with Anime, TV shows, and movies, especially Sci-Fi, Adventure, and Action genres.
• 🐶 Family, Friends & Furry Companions: Spending quality time with my wife and family is a priority, whether it's social events, parties, or cheering on my nieces and nephews at their sports activities. Also, helping my mom breed and train her wonderful (and wonderfully energetic!) mini Australian shepherds.

What’s Next?

I am seeking senior leadership (Lead/Manager/Director) or high-impact Principal/Staff-level Design System roles where I can leverage my hybrid expertise to lead, design, build, scale, and champion world-class design system initiatives that drive significant business value and elevate user experiences.