Management

  • As a project manager I have led stakeholder engagement, budgeting and resource allocation, vendor management, and team progress for clients across private and public sectors, leading projects up to $200k in value.

  • I’m always thinking of how to improve processes, and when given the opportunity I will run with it. I’ve established design teams, led research initiatives, and created training programs for employees on limited resources and with lasting value.

  • When leading a team, I pair skills to interests, and measure progress through regular status updates and working sessions.

  • Openness and accessibility is how I like to model leadership. I look for ways to challenge and upskill that aligns to the work at hand.

I was initially hired by a company as their first graphic designer with the intention of focusing on print work. Soon after starting I noticed that they had a team building websites and applications without a designer and asked if I could help. I earned trust by starting small — just a page or small feature update. I gradually began providing specifications along with updates, and eventually was able to provide clickable prototypes to developers.

As my workload grew, I petitioned to hire an intern to help with various design tasks. I was able to lead the hiring process, and we chose a candidate who ended up joining our team permanently after graduation. I helped structure her workload, gave creative direction on her work, and found new ways to embed our team across the company. As we grew, we created an end to end process aligned with developer sprints that included wireframing, prototyping, heuristic evaluations and accessibility reviews.

With this team we created more efficient workflows and better products that increased client satisfaction and led to several contract renewals.

From Founding Designer to Team Lead

Woman giving a presentation to two seated women, pointing at a world map on a large screen, with data and icons related to global library statistics.

Demonstrating the features of a project in a lecture to exchange students from Japan.

Producing a Seattle event with a team of 12 volunteers

World Information Architecture Day (WIAD) is an annual global event hosted in several cities over the course of one day. Each year is centered around a theme, and participants in multiple countries listen to speakers, attend workshops, and meet with colleagues.

In 2023 I was the lead producer for the event in Seattle, managing a full team devoted to event planning, marketing, sponsorships, and day of logistics. My leadership approach allowed people to form teams based on interests and own their respective tasks. Weekly virtual syncs kept everyone aligned and I was able to troubleshoot challenges and pair groups to collaborate when it made sense. For example, I had the marketing team work with the sponsorship team to craft communications and graphics to support funding efforts.

We had 120 registered attendees, and with the combination of ticket sales and sponsorship funds we ended up only spending half of what was raised, ensuring future producers of the Seattle event would have a secure nest egg to access through the global WIAD team.

A group of 13 diverse people standing on a stage in front of a wooden wall with colorful artwork, celebrating World IA Day 2023. The event's logo and tagline are at the bottom of the image.

Standing with my team on stage at World Information Architecture Day

Un-siloing teams

While working at a startup as the UX lead, I spent a lot of time getting to know how the different teams at the company operated to get a sense of how our business model worked and how it fed into product development. Most teams only had a basic idea of what other teams did, and despite having a company wiki, everybody had their own methods of adding and dispersing content.

I took on the task of revamping our own team’s wiki page, with the goal of providing relevant information to our own team as well as link to resources for other teams. I ended up dividing the Confluence page into two main sections that funneled the audience depending on their role. External teams could see what was in development and access relevant documentation and SLAs. Internal team members could be quickly linked to their knowledge base, team directory, and have quick links to HR resources like the PTO request page.

Initial feedback was positive. We made adjustments and the wiki became a valuable resource for many in the company. Our project manager reported that the questions she was constantly fielding from other teams had lessened significantly since she had been able to share out the wiki link.

Handwritten website wireframe on a whiteboard for the new wiki page with annotations, sections for team members, resources, and notes on product recommendations, user stories, and technical details.

A whiteboard sketch of the future wiki

Mentoring Graduate Students

In 2020 I joined the iMentorship program at the University of Washington Information School. Each year since I have taken on one or two graduate-level mentees, helping them refine their resumes, graduate portfolios, and gave them challenges to help them practice their presentation skills. It’s been a wonderful way to stay connected with my alma mater and help coach people new to the industry.

Logo of Information School at University of Washington, with a purple circular icon and purple text.

“Maeve’s leadership and experience helped us structure our teams with clear objectives and milestones. I valued the safe space she created for us to share both our wins and our struggles. She stepped up to help on tasks when there was a gap.”

— Event Volunteer, World Information Architecture Day