Naturally inquisitive, I don’t shy away from asking the right questions. When taking on new projects, I’m able to effectively take advantage of my fresh eyes and leverage prior frameworks in new concept areas.

I always believe in prioritizing actions based on what would truly move the needle. Thus, when I think of solutions to problems, I don’t just dive straight into ideation—I find that it is vital to peel the onion and identify what the right and most pressing problems are, then find the right solutions.

To do so, I think in systems, and solve with details—marrying both top-down strategies and bottom-up synthesis when making decisions.

I’m able to both effectively zoom out and look at problems from an aerial perspective, then zoom in and get into the weeds as necessary.

While data is something I fully embrace and try to weave into my workflow as much as I can, it’s important to be cognizant that research or analytics data has its limits. User behavior is always contextual and influenced by external factors that quantitative or qualitative data may not always be able to capture. Thus, I find it important to remember that these data are here to inform—not purely drive—our decisions.

I am cognizant that problems and the environments they live in can often be volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). Thus, when thinking of solutions and generally approaching my work, I always try to be “two steps ahead” and think about not just the status quo, but also potential future states.

I find that it’s easy to make something sound complex, but it can be quite difficult to make it sound simple.

Thus, I have found it crucial to have my mind wired to always try to simplify concepts as much as I can, whether it’s through distilling the key takeaways, representing walls of text with visuals, using relatable metaphors, giving the right context, or just using basic, widely understood language.

In the same vein, I’ve been able to make use of this same philosophy in architecting simple, intuitive experiences for users.