Creative direction + adaptive leadership
Results naturally spill out of the way we think, the way we notice, and the way we move. Prioritize, act, reflect, adapt—this is how I lead.
I’m energized by collaborators who are game to play with the dynamic, passive, and conditional forces in front of us…these forces are FOR US and WITH US, ready to transform ideas into form and function.
Meet me on the playing field between well-earned experience and a curiosity for what doesn’t exist yet.
Play for motivation
This mashup pumps me up every time I watch it. SOUND ON!*
WARNING: Language 😜
Currently reading
Is what you’re building driven by profit motives but lacking vision? This read is a gentle nudge.
Confusing business with productive momentum? This read holds principles worth testing somewhere in life or work.
The scroll feels like a massive contraction and how I engage with it right now is unclear. When things are unclear, I step back, and see what reveals itself.
“Lisa is the delightfully improbable locus of deeply intuitive, rigorous and intentional, wacky and exuberant, and endlessly curious. To experience Lisa’s art is to experience her as a colleague is to experience her as a person out in the world. That is to say, she is authentic, and present, and all-in.”
BETH, Copy leadMy path has swerved from commercial illustration to giftware design to corporate retail to tech. It’s taught me to identify what changes and what stays the same across design industries.
No story is stick straight—but I aim to take the bird’s-eye view and spot the subtle through lines. I want to know: What actually connects people? What defines a useful product or service? And how do we set the conditions for them to become sustainable?
Work with me
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Why adaptive? At the very core of guidance is a sensitivity to assess context, help others gain confidence in a way forward, and place bets on the most impactful approach. Leadership does not look, sound, or feel one way. We need more voices in the business arena to model success. We need introverts and deep listeners with a conviction to connect—I’m one of them.
My instincts show me:
⚡︎ when to direct
⚡︎ when to step back
⚡︎ when to let others lead
⚡︎ when to delegate
⚡︎ when to act
⚡︎ when to analyze
⚡︎ when to wait
Experiment, learn, adapt. -
Upleveling the status quo doesn’t always come with a roadmap. People managers are at a loss for time and resources to catch up and free up bottlenecks. I work alongside other creative directors to craft adaptable, lean, and highly prioritized action plans, turning limitations into:
⚡︎ creative strategy
⚡︎ product development
⚡︎ team workflow
⚡︎ team structure
There is NO SHAME in tapping a sounding board, a coach, or a creative partner to work out an upgrade. Seeking partnership at the right time is a boss move—teams learn by example, and managers want them learning skills that will clear blocks. -
Teams are trying to do what they came here to do…BE CREATIVE. But they can’t relax into their creative brain when it’s eclipsed by time management. I teach people how to set limitations up for growth with the MVP approach (minimum viable product). And I promise, once it starts working for you, you’ll feel like the other kind of MVP. I’m already trained in Scrum, but the team doesn’t need to be in order to start using it—I simplify the basic principles to help you organize space and time for:
⚡︎ ideating
⚡︎ auditing
⚡︎ prioritizing
⚡︎ negotiating
⚡︎ creating a path towards lightweight, actionable systems that can handle scaling up and down. -
Cross-functional partners try talking to designers, copywriters, or developers, but don’t always share their language…which has led to misunderstanding, frustration, and avoiding conversations altogether. Chronically bypassing creatives due to common communication gaps costs time and money. Let me clear something up:
(1) As humans solving problems, we’re ALL creative. (2) What we call “Creatives” in the workplace are people just like you, working in unique disciplines, domains, and areas of expertise. (3) Good news: I can show you ways to bridge the communication gap.
Partners don’t have to give up on asking for what they need. They might simply need a creative insider to point them towards a conversational adjustment.
I may be the right match for you if:
✅ Opportunities have been sitting in the should/would/what if pile. You KNOW they could be SO helpful if the team could move them forward.
✅ Creative systems and processes are working okay-ish, but things feel bumpy and you wish they could be smoother.
✅ BOLD prioritization is celebrated, and you’re ready to look at which work can be streamlined.
✅ Leadership has a clear vision or mission (the what), and trusts their teams to ideate on the how.
Q. Did your working methods come naturally to you?
A. Picture me throwing a BIG. JUICY. SLAB🥩. OF. NO! down on the table.
Lots of trial and error, people. I started as an observant, sensitive, disorganized artist who ran purely on impulse. I combine my natural gifts with a willingness to learn methods to help me work around my constraints. Building objectivity has been crucial for me when trying to get unstuck in the face of conflicting opinions and general creative feedback. If I can learn, anyone can.
The practices I advocate for, when repeated in the right context, with the right people, create compound wins over time.
