Visible

the first all-digital wireless carrier

Role — Director, Head of Design

When I got the call from the Head of Product at Visible, I had one thought — I don’t want to work for a cell phone company. But the Denver-based team, and the mission convinced me otherwise.

As the Head of Design, I led a team of six designers, navigated the politics of a start-up managed by a fortune 10 corporation in Verizon, authored A Product Design Career Guide for Individual Contributors, and pushed the Product Managers, Program managers, Brand, Marketing, CPO, and CEO to simplify our product offering, and contrast it to competitors in the market.

leading a team

When I joined Visible as the Head of Design, I leveraged key design leadership skills to drive our success:

  1. Team Empowerment: I led and mentored a team of six designers, fostering a culture of creativity, collaboration, and innovation.

  2. Political Navigation: Operating within a start-up under Verizon's management, I skillfully navigated the complexities of the corporate environment, building alliances and aligning stakeholders to advance design initiatives.

  3. Strategic Influence: Working closely with Product Managers, Program Managers, Brand, Marketing, CPO, and CEO, I advocated for product simplification and differentiation to position Visible effectively in the market.

  4. Resilience and Agility: Despite challenges, such as innovating in the industry and rebuilding the all-digital onboarding flow with eSIM support, our team persisted, conducting system audits, presenting concept proposals, and organizing creative offsites.

It was an incredibly challenging environment to innovate, test, and to try to build things as simple as free trials, or radical, annual pricing. But while external change was hard, the internal team didn’t slow down with aggressive system audits, concept proposals, creative offsites, and rebuilding the onboarding flow of the service to be truly all-digital with eSIM support.