Creative, Product and Innovation leader based in Portland, OR.

Design, Innovation and Product Leader driving change in the athletic outdoor and performance market, specializing in brand building and transformative product launches. From innovation, advanced concept development, creative direction and establishing a brand design language to inspiring, mentoring and leading large design teams to accomplish common goals I lead the design and development process from AC to commercialization and build strong partnerships to ensure a successful “go to market” strategy.

Projects

Strength

Creative Direction

Leading Designers has to start with Strategy. I’ve been leading design teams in outdoor / athletic industry ranging from women’s high fashion to athletic, sport style, athleisure and outdoor, with design groups ranging from apparel and accessories, footwear, hard goods and soft goods, always creating cohesive collection launches across multiple end uses and categories. That cohesion starts with a strategic creative direction, a deck published seasonally and followed throughout the Concept to Consumer process. From seasonal story and color direction, to material, print and trims, it defines all aspects of seasonal direction.

To execute that creative direction I’ve built strong collaborative teams filled with independent thinkers, set audacious goals, influenced partners thru communication and led the team through product execution. As a leader I believe my role centers around building a common purpose and aligning skillsets to meet that challenge

Innovation Leadership

Innovation and testing is at the forefront of everything we do at OR and I deeply value the art of tinkering as a tool to ideate and problem solve for the end use. That maker culture is a mix of reverence for the “Research” in our name and irreverently always asking how do we do it differently. Creating and amplifying the advanced concepts R&D (AC) engine to build total garments, hardgoods, footwear and components has been my mission at OR, from building out a process to linking creatives together with engineers and creating project pods. US manufacturing downstairs, working with the factory on Pro products has allowed us to maximize the maker skillset in house and streamline the innovation process.

This has meant reengineering our process and building out systems to support innovation. I’ve led the built out of a maker lab, created an advanced concept calendar, centralized a team and built a multi year roadmap for product innovation that aligns with our 10 year product roadmap. I rallied the organization around freeing up resources and creating a fail fast, fail often environment where innovation thrives. 

Product Leadership

As a mender of the Executive Team and a Product Leader I am responsible for the overall growth trajectory of the Outdoor Research Apparel, Outerwear and Accessories businesses, encompassing long range planning, vision roadmap, assortment planning, competitor analysis and white space identification. I have managed Product Briefs, Line plans, financial targets and budgets as well as multiple functional departments across all product creation.

Human Centered Design

Born from the need to create authentic user first solutions and deliver uncompromising product execution I lead design, development and innovation teams through a human centered design ideation thru commercialization process.

I'm passionate about pushing bold change in our industry, that change starts with empowering designers and developers to build product differently, setting expansive goals and aligning with cross functional partners to ensure we have momentum throughout execution. At OR this has meant building and owning the multi-year user centered innovation roadmap across product design, materials and innovation and connecting it to our consumer insights.

Launching innovative first to market technologies, has meant working with NATO on a cold weather system (Nato soldiers wearing OR on the Ukrainian border) and special forces on new concepts for tactical, on Mars simulator project, or with top of mountain athletes on their individual sports kit needs, all rooted in user insights and human centered design.

Trend Direction

Working with trend services and consumer insights results in publishing a seasonal concept and trend report for the brand, highlighting fashion and cultural trends and their relevancy to our customer. These get filtered into seasonal concept direction and influence the seasonal designs, concepts, colors and prints.

Color / Materials / Prints

From working with a broad spectrum of trend and color services to building out seasonal color stories and seasonal direction I’ve been leading the Color/ Materials / Prints group to drive newness and create brand appropriate, unique seasonal color stories. Applying color theory from color concept through lab dipping and color commercialization has resulted in greater color consistency for the brand.

Hands on print creation workshops, rather than purchasing prints results in brand authentic print expression, while working with Tokyo’s Pigment Library ensures our colors are uniquely formulated and not repetitive in the market.

Design DNA

“if you cover up the logo, will it still look like OR” that is the question we have answered with the Design DNA project. I led the creation and implementation of design guidelines, branding guidelines, design/ brand ID principles all deeply rooted in the brand DNA. Creating that “red thread” has allowed a greater consistency of design language across all aspects of the brand and all product categories.

Mentorship

I’ve been building and coaching high-performing innovation and design teams and inspiring them to deliver unique design solutions in each of my roles. At OR this means hiring a team and aligning cross functional skillsets and talents, then coalescing around a common design purpose. My role is to spark maximum creative potential and increase the team’s capacity to create, removing obstacles and creating processes that enable them to think out of the box. I’ve built strong teams in each of my roles, managing designers, developers, materials and innovation teams as well as external contractors, often starting with under leveraged or misaligned teams and elevating their performance. I’m involved in mentorships not only inside my organization, where I lead the design internship program but also thru UofO, Camber and as a board member for a female owned startup, all to foster the development of the next generation of outdoor talent.

Experience

Outdoor Research

Pearl Izumi

Xterra

Underarmour

LLBean

Lands End

Anna Sui

Nicole Miller