Key Accomplishments
Led Cross-Functional Client Projects for Digital Enablement: Successfully directed multiple client projects within the “discovery & define” phases, focusing on assessing challenges and identifying opportunities for innovation in digital enablement for financial service organizations across Canada, specifically those with 100 to 300 employees. My approach included:
- Collaborating with a diverse, cross-functional remote team comprising business analysts, technical architects, and Salesforce CRM experts to tackle growing pains and post-merger challenges faced by financial tech firms and credit unions in an agile environment.
- Engaging in discovery activities to deeply understand the client’s organizational practices, operational service delivery, and technical systems, championing insights across five dimensions: People (end-users, customers, front-end and back-end employees, external partners), Place (environment), Product (tools), Process, and Partners (external service providers).
- Facilitating workshops, individual and group interviews, service blueprint mapping, and user journey mapping to gather insights and evaluate existing business documentation, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of user needs and experiences.
- Planning, conducting, and analyzing findings to inform the holistic evaluation of challenges and opportunities for improvement or innovation.
- Delivering comprehensive outputs including blueprints, journey maps, roadmaps, recommendation reports, and visual representations of findings that informed project sponsors with an in-depth understanding of needs for their upcoming 3-5 year strategic plans and CRM software decisions.
This initiative provided impactful insights and strategic steps to help clients’ operational efficiency but also positioned them to leverage digital enablement more effectively for transformative outcomes holistically. Through this work, I demonstrated expertise in service design methodologies while fostering collaboration among cross-functional teams to drive more impactful and relevant people and digital solutions
Delivered two 2-week hands-on learning programs in Innovative Thinking for new immigrant professionals participating in MOSAIC BC job-readiness programs. The programs aimed to develop business skills such as critical thinking, analytical thinking, team work, and collaborative leadership, while also coaching participants on self-leadership competencies to improve confidence, emotional and social intelligence, and self-awareness. Utilizing a Service Design framework, the program provided hands-on learning experiences and the cultivation of a Design Thinking mindset. Led teams in applying service design and an empathetic perspective to provide agile solution recommnedations for local organizations such as the City of Vancouver’s Engineering department and its Diversity and Inclusion department, as well as Telus’ Marketing and Innovations team. Worked with 5 cohorts, comprising 15 innovation teams and a total of 90+ participants, with the majority gaining employment within 3 months due to the growth in their business skills and confidence.
Led the transformation of the Club Couloir Performance Wear‘s organizational transformation, I successfully improved the company’s culture and ecosystem, resulting in a 30% increase in profits within 18 months. By identifying specific challenges and implementing co-creative solutions, the company also grew from 5 to 17 staff, and I was promoted to manage the design and development department with a team of four. I achieved this through systems thinking and doing by:
- Assessing employee, vendor, and business needs to create alignment across the organization
- Streamlining processes and reducing departmental silos
- Facilitating increased collaboration and dialogue
- Cultivating a more engaged work culture with open, inclusive dialogue and fostering of psychological safety
- Improving employee happiness and sense of belonging.
Planned, coordinated, designed, coach and facilitated & led 7 annual 3-day Global Service Design Jam events locally via immersive workshops. Attended by participants from all industries and user segments, totalling 9 events saw over 145+ participants, delivered in-person and remote online. Participants became familiar with Service Design in both thinking and doing. They saw opportunities in where they could use and apply their new skills gain.
Co-Founded UX Design Therapy and Service Design Vancouver which later became Innov8 Collective community with a new volunteer leadership team. Organized, hosted and facilitated 30+ design thinking & service design related events to engage individuals from all backgrounds to engage, inspire and empower collective knowledge and skills for growth. Highlights for attendees were the level of inclusiveness, sense of belonging, and range of hands-on interactions with learning experiences.
Went back to university at age 47 and completed a 10 month certification program trained as leadership coach for individuals, teams, groups within the organizational context. The training included hands-on practicing with both individual and team coaching, working with volunteer organizations. It marries with my experience with business and service experience design, assisting in communicating with stakeholders for needs assessment, creating psychological safety, fostering co-creative dialogue and collaboration for solution finding. Graduated Dec 2021.
<p style=”text-align: center;”><span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>see Certification (coming soon)</span></p>
