I Turn Sticky Notes Into Strategy & Teams Into Forces of Nature

Where AI-first strategy meets human accountability.

7+ years transforming "we need more designers" into "holy s***, look what design just delivered."

The Receipts

Because "I'm a team player" doesn't cut it at this level

23+

Designers Who Don't Hate Mondays

Led across 3 companies

85%

UX Design Team Retention

spanning the globe

40%

Faster Cross-Team Collaboration

Actual time saved

1→3

User Experience Maturity raised

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader 2026

What People Say

One of the best managers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. She is an excellent listener, a straight shooter, and a strategic thinker with an eye for creating and operationalizing great process.

I always felt heard, respected, and protected from any politics. She brings the team together and holds them accountable, all with a sense of humor that's hard to find. Any place that snatches Amber up is lucky to have her.

Amber either knows it, or she can quickly figure it out. In the end, she's about results.

Things I'm Unreasonably Proud Of

Strategic work that actually moved needles (and changed minds)

STRATEGIC TRANSFORMATION

Level 1 to Level 3 of the N/N Scale

Grew the design system, established DesignOps practice, contributed to Gartner Magic Quadrant

TEAM BUILDING

Growing from 9 to 14 Designers at Paychex

Built a distributed team spanning the globe from Spain to Portland, Oregon

Pattern library to full component system with a 7-person UX org

Camp UX: The Unconference

Annual virtual and fully distributed UX Camp for the entire organization

Transforming UX Hiring

Rewrote and reorganized hiring practices for the UX teams at Paychex & Logility

"Give me a stack of post-its and a handful of sharpies, and I can change hearts and minds."

What I Do Best

The trifecta of director-level UX leadership

Building & Scaling Teams

From hiring and onboarding to mentorship and retention, I build teams that stick around and level up.

Strategic Design Leadership

Aligning design with business goals, building roadmaps, and making sure UX has a seat at the table.

AI-Era DesignOps Practice

Building the governance layer that keeps humans responsible for AI-driven decisions.

Recent Thinking

writing about UX leadership and scaling design

Man holding black plastic trash

Delete Your Art

Something I tell every UX designer I mentor is to delete your art. Here’s what that means and what AI might be doing to our ability to actually do it.

Read More »

Think we'd work well together?

Let's grab a coffee and see if our chaos is compatible.

Based in Atlanta | open to remote