Hi, I’m Tessa, and you're more than welcome to skip to the good part.
Throughout my career, I have been acknowledged as a solution-focused professional with the ability to design, develop, communicate, and manage ambitious projects with confidence. I possess an operational and data-focused mindset with extensive experience in metrics-driven environments.
My background lies at the intersection of design and computer science. With 8+ years of experience and evolution as a graphic, UX, UI, web, product designer, the why underlying my professional endeavors has remained fixed: I build experiences in order to solve problems, and I do so with a heavy emphasis on best-in-class creative and art direction.
More specifically, my skillset blends:
• Strong copywriting and editing;
• A passion for creating innovative products with accessible, user-centric design;
• The business acumen to identify and drive product goals;
• And the technical aptitude to interface with both designers and engineers.
I'm committed to solving preventable issues through effective leadership and possess an acute understanding of interdepartmental friction points. I've ghostwritten a book; pushed, pulled, and merged to my heart’s content as a developer; exported countless, inaptly-named V47_FINAL_ACTUALLY files as a visual designer; and been directly confronted with the need for project and product management in lacking the time to actually... do my job. While still a practicing individual contributor in these spaces, my career organically—and simultaneously—pivoted into that of management and copy editing. I find immense meaning in the design craft, Agile methods, and systems that have allowed my teams to perform at the highest levels of inspired, modular execution.
Currently, I'm the Director of Product Strategy at Databento.
• Experience copywriting and editing in various contexts, from publishing to technical documentation to digital marketing. I have strong attention to detail when it comes to proofing, and I'm an expert at maintaining brand voice in short and long-form pieces.
• Experience as a director in the product and tech industry, spearheading consumer engagement via design systems, information architecture, consumer experience design, interactive design, and social media. I absorb complexity, transmit clarity, and bring genuine enthusiasm to internal dynamics.
• Experience in product team leadership and large-scale program planning/implementation, with a consistent willingness to be a hands-on, individual contributor when needed.
• Experience leading teams through definitions and processes that meet the technical, visual, and functional requirements. I've worked across a broad range of styles and possess strong knowledge of applying accessibility best-practices to correspondent roadmaps.
• Proven track record building highly-effective, interpersonal relationships and generating business within matrix organizations.
• Exceptional brand, visual, and interaction design skills, with a depth of experience working across the user-centered design process—from conducting and leveraging research (quantitative and qualitative) to prototyping and implementation to testing and evaluation.
• Quick learner with demonstrated organizational skills. I’ve seamlessly integrated existing management protocols/software in team workflows, established contextual OKRs, analyzed KPIs beyond vanity metrics, and successfully reported all phases of product lifecycles.
• Strong foundational design skills: typography, layout, composition, color theory, iconography, UI/UX, motion/interaction design and branding. Extensive experience creating and documenting systems/components/UI toolkits, style guides, and front-end frameworks for design and development teams. Please review my Works page for applications of my technical skillset.
• Highly proficient in: Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, XD — 8+ years of experience in each program), Sketch, InVision, Figma, Zeplin, Jira, Abstract, Microsoft Office, Apple iWork, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, WebGL (three.js), Liquid, PHP, C++, and more.
• Working knowledge in front-end development and code across digital channels, including websites, web apps, mobile apps, and email templates. Significant experience defining taxonomies and content strategy for development of components to be used in design systems and Content Management Systems (CMS).
• Strong technical acumen for translating design artifacts into code-based solutions across many types of front-end technologies.
• Writing background with extensive experience in copywriting in branded tone of voice and for general marketing needs.
• Experience producing photo and video campaigns/content, including concept development, storyboarding, sourcing relevant references, etc. for editorial, mgfx, and short-form pieces (all while monitoring timelines, appropriate delivery to color/VFX houses, overseeing lighting/color accuracy, aspect ratios, file optimization, post-processing for photography, and so on).
• Strong understanding of key metrics for digital products, including (but not limited to): monthly active users (MAU), daily active users (DAU), average revenue per paying user (ARPPU), conversion rates, and how these figures can and will impact product strategy. I'm a consumer advocate with experience integrating marketing frameworks and taking a data-driven approach.
My strengths involve building cross-functional relationships while representing a variety of teams' interests. I’ve worked alongside internal and external departments, agencies, etc.—across seemingly-disconnected industries—to launch impactful products. I'm a strong articulator with the natural ability to translate complex ideas and an expert at pitch/presentation creation in front-facing roles.
• I’ve adjusted workflows to not only minimize the subjugation of design to engineering needs, but actively protect the integrity of my team’s work as well. I regularly utilize my understanding of product design, software development, brand strategy, and areas of specialization within the greater design landscape in decision-making to guide projects from pitch to completion. I am adept at facilitating team productivity, managing client expectations, and providing a layer of communication between teams and stakeholders to foster community/ensure shared objectives.
• I’ve effectively standardized the tooling and systems used to scope, track, and archive projects with both high-level strategy and a sustained consideration for the diminutive—yet equally important—tasks, like DAM systems, metadata input, folder structure, file nomenclature, and clearly-articulated agendas/action items (digital asset management). Along the same vein, I have strong resourcing skills and am collaborative by nature, i.e. operating through the lens of business initiatives to account for minimal risk, maximum usability/profitability, and the establishment of efficient timelines throughout concurrent projects.
• I’ve worked within organizations during times of rapid growth, and these experiences have allowed me to assess and fine-tune frameworks (Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, and related PM ideologies) for the delivery of consistent quality at scale—regardless of ambiguities or difficulties along the way. I tend to function as the “calm" during the storm and, as needed, I’m always happy to provide further clarification via my own mock-ups of experience maps, user journeys/service blueprints, interaction models, flows, and wireframes.
• Most importantly, I embody both a gritty and servant approach to leadership. I have routinely cultivated environments in which discordant working styles are unified into a cohesive, user-centered project flow. I value interpersonal relationships, the safeguarding of team health, and operationalizing digital production through transparent practices.
I’m originally from Canton, OH. As a junior in high school, I was afforded the opportunity to enroll in a CTE (Career Technical Education) graphic design program. The curriculum mirrored that of my instructor’s syllabi at the University of Akron, and our assignments were graded alongside his college students’. Come senior year, the class itself functioned as a design team in many respects; the three hours we spent together each day were spent executing corporate projects our instructor had sourced, and we were evaluated on the basis of our collective deliverables. A few weeks in, I’d been hired by a local software development firm and left school to work at my first design position from noon-7 PM. Between product and website launches, I began to learn the basics of programming and decided to pursue this track within my formal education at Duke. Before graduating, I went on to place third in Business Professionals of America national competition for desktop publishing.
Prior to graphic design, I worked for two photographers and began to learn videography/editing as well. I'm advanced in Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro/After Effects as a result, and have continued to employ this background throughout my career.
I’ve lived in Cape Town, SA and Paris, FR.
As a Program II alumna (Duke University), I developed an individualized bachelor's degree program — entitled Computational Media & The User Experience — in recognition of computing's role in modes of communication and expression. Computational media involves the creation, enhancement, and study of media forms for which computational processes enable deeply interactive and/or novel user experiences. My curriculum allowed me to refine my technical skills in computer science, digital media, and other generative art forms while understanding how the works I produce affect and culminate into the many user experiences permeating the formation of contemporary cultures. With less than 15 admitted students per graduating class, Program II is reserved for Duke students with interdisciplinary academic inquiries that are unable to be addressed through any combination of traditional majors/minors.
^ I applied my learnings to my Capstone in Innovation & Entrepreneurship, which involved building a mobile AR application to accurately size online apparel in real time (using iPhone's 3D technology, which was novel at the time in late 2018). Significant consumer discounts were offered as an incentive to opt into the AR service and opt out of returns; my research showed that said discounts still provided cost-savings on the B2B side for retailers in reverse logistics, so the business model was a win-win. Overall, my primary initiative — in attempting to mitigate the significant carbon emissions of returning physical merchandize purchased online — was sustainability. Snapchat and Meta announced AR plans in the fashion landscape the following year, and I found this to be incredibly exciting; I've continued to be very curious about AR/VR, Web3, and the associated cultural shifts.
I come from a family of entrepreneurs. The most recent venture = the (painstaking) renovation and opening of Magnolia Spring Farm, a flower farm and event venue in Magnolia, OH. I believe my appreciation for the digital has ~stemmed from hands-on design experiences in event production and meaningful activations. I'm also an interior design hobbyist with advanced sleuthing skills (i.e Craigslist) in service of vintage finds and sustainable decor.
And last, but not least: my name spelled backwards is Asset ᵕ̈
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