About

I lead design systems and UX platform work for complex B2B software. I’ve spent more than 20 years in UX, including 15 in enterprise SaaS.

I started as a painter. Painting taught me that a picture holds together or it doesn’t, and that coherence is built one decision at a time. Design systems ask the same thing at company scale.

Leadership

At Paylocity, I led a large UX team within the broader UX organization, including managing managers. I helped build the career framework, progression paths, and onboarding that supported the team as it grew. I also led shared platform work across more than 15 products and contributed to Citrus, Paylocity’s design system, alongside the Citrus team and partner engineers.

At Uptake, I built and led UX for data platform products. The work covered machine-learning tools, developer platforms, ingestion pipelines, and the data-heavy interfaces people needed to understand all of it.

I lead as a player-coach. I set direction, build the systems around the team, and stay close enough to the work to know when the system is helping and when it’s getting in the way.

How I work now

Aquex.ai grew out of the consultancy I started in 2022. It brings together my client work and the tools I build to support it.

Recent engagements include a navigation and information architecture review for Parts Town and strategy, content direction, and delivery coordination for The Academy’s brand and website.

AI is integrated into how I research, analyze, plan, and develop the work. On both projects, Stage1 helped me inspect the existing website, TraceLab supported research, and CMOS kept decisions and project context connected across sessions. I use AI to work across those materials, with client conversations, evidence, and my judgment shaping the recommendations.

Forge, built on OODS Foundry, carries the same approach into design systems: give people and agents structured context they can use to create and evaluate interfaces. My tools, client work, and writing develop together. The writing often explores questions that first surfaced in a project.

Art and music

Painting and music remain part of my life. I’m also restarting Denied Art, my art, framing, and printing business. Those relationships connect with my design work too: The Academy engagement began through my framing work.

The work I’m looking for

I’m pursuing senior UX and design systems leadership roles and consulting through Aquex. I can help teams clarify a difficult product or information architecture problem, evolve a design system, or put AI-assisted ways of working into practice. That can start with a focused assessment or pilot and grow into a sustained partnership.

Discuss a consulting engagement.