Hi!
I’m Tony.
I'm a designer, strategist, facilitator, and lifelong maker based in Northern California.
For nearly two decades, I've helped companies figure out complicated problems and turn them into better products and experiences.
I've worked as an individual contributor, consultant, product owner, manager, and design director. I've built teams, worked inside startups, helped scale a major ecommerce company, partnered with healthcare organizations, and tackled complex enterprise products.
Somewhere along the way I realized the title mattered a lot less to me than the problem.
My Leadership Principles
Positivity is contagious.
I strive to bring a positive can-do attitude to the group, as that's what I expect from my colleagues. Plus, no one wants to be around negative people. Go first.
Work with the best people you can.
The best work of my career came when I was surrounded by great people. If you see one, scoop ‘em up. Your network makes the best work.
Collaboration brings the best work out of a group.
Seek feedback and iterate quickly. Workshop ideas and facilitate conversations that lead to action.
Always make improvements
Find bottlenecks and solve them. Both internally and externally. Start small and gain momentum over time.
Hire people who are better than you, and let them do their job.
No one likes a micro-manager.
I'm a proud generalist.
I like understanding how the whole thing works.
Customer needs. Business goals. Technology. Content. Organizational constraints. The interface.
The people who have to build it.
My role tends to live somewhere in the middle of all of those things.
I can zoom out with leadership and help define where we're going, then sit down with designers and engineers and work through how we're actually going to make it.
That's where I'm happiest.
I think like a craftsman.
Long before I knew terms like design thinking or product strategy, I liked taking things apart, understanding how they worked, and making them better.
That instinct still drives how I design.
Research gives you clues. Strategy gives you direction. Prototypes help you think. Craft matters. And eventually you have to put something into the world and see what happens.
Then you improve it.