Speed, depth, & flexibility that agencies and FTE’s often can’t match.

Fractional design leadership brings the speed, depth, and flexibility a traditional agency can't match, at a fraction of the cost. I deliver VP-level strategic thinking for roughly 25-35% of the cost of a full-time VP of Design, without the overhead of benefits, equity dilution, or severance risk.

Most agencies need a defined scope and a clean brief. I do my best work when things are messy. I'll help you shape the vision, test assumptions, and move fast when it matters, taking you from zero to one with a product your customers actually want to use.

You work with me. No account managers, no junior handoffs, no translation layers. You get strategic thinking and hands-on execution from day one, without the hiring delays or long-term commitment of a full-time hire. And I will treat your product like a co-founder would, not like a vendor would.

The real value of fractional design leadership isn't the deliverables. It's what happens to the team. When senior design leadership sits in the room, asking the right questions and modeling what good looks like, it raises the ceiling for everyone around it. Engineers start asking UX questions earlier. PMs think about user journeys before they write specs. The team doesn't just get better outputs. It absorbs a higher standard, one that outlasts the engagement.

Research from McKinsey & Company backs this up: strategic design correlates with stronger financial performance.

I've co-founded six companies, three of them AI-driven, with exits including acquisitions by Xinova and Augment.io. I've held executive roles at Apple, SAP, Shutterfly, and SnapLogic. I've raised capital, recruited founding teams, navigated product-market fit, delivered MVPs, and made the calls that determined whether a company survived its first two years or didn't.

When I work with a company, I bring all of that. Not a framework, not a methodology, but judgment earned from having made those calls myself.

I work with a small number of startups at a time, at the director level and above, on the problems that are hardest to think through alone.

I believe in growth through straightforward, candid conversations. If you're building something and want a thought partner who has been there, I'd like to talk.