Creative direction + adaptive leadership
I help teams tap into their existing potential so they can transform it into movement, form, and function.
Meet me on the playing field between well-earned experience and a curiosity for what doesn’t exist yet.
Play for motivation
This mashup pumps me up every time I watch.
Warning: Expletives incoming 😜
Work with me
My path has swerved from commercial illustration to giftware design to corporate retail to tech. It’s taught me to identify what changes and what stays the same across the disciplines.
No story is stick straight—so I aim to take the bird’s-eye view and spot the compelling through lines that lead to the crux: What creates connection? What makes a product or service useful? And how do we set the conditions for sustainability?
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Prioritize, act, reflect, adapt. Imagine your team moving from reactive to adaptive…building a culture that raises the status quo without having to force it. Give a team the tools to assess context, and watch them get good at placing bets on the most impactful approach. Leadership does not look, sound, or feel one way. We need more voices in the business arena to model success. We need introverts and deep listeners with a conviction to connect—I’m one of them.
My instincts show me:
⚡︎ when to direct
⚡︎ when to step back
⚡︎ when to let others lead
⚡︎ when to delegate
⚡︎ when to act
⚡︎ when to analyze
⚡︎ when to wait -
The uncertainty! 3 to 6 months without a trusted team member goes by fast, but let’s be real…A LOT changes in that timeframe, and neither you or your team can risk absorbing the workflow impact.
It can be challenging to find the right fit quickly and has the range to embrace the transitional nature of the gig.
I’ve covered maternity leaves for two years straight. Here’s what it takes:
⚡︎ Passion for integrating with teams
⚡︎ Comfort with transitory roles
⚡︎ A service mindsetI’m holding down a seat for someone who is about to embark on a very hard second job—parenthood. All parties can feel confident that this seat is held with reverence, and made ready for their transition back in when the time comes.
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Upleveling the status quo doesn’t always come with a roadmap. People managers are at a loss for time and resources to catch up and free up bottlenecks. I work alongside other creative directors to inform adaptable, lean, and highly prioritized action plans, turning limitations into:
⚡︎ creative strategy
⚡︎ product development
⚡︎ team workflow
⚡︎ team structure
There is NO SHAME in tapping a sounding board, a coach, or a creative partner to work out an upgrade. Seeking partnership at the right time is a boss move—teams learn by example, and managers want to model collaboration skills that clear blocks. -
Teams are trying to do what they came here to do…BE CREATIVE. But they can’t relax into their creative brain when it’s eclipsed by time management. I teach people how to set limitations up for growth with the MVP approach (minimum viable product). And I promise, once it starts working for you, you’ll feel like the other kind of MVP. I’m already trained in Scrum, but the team doesn’t need to be in order to start using it—I simplify the basic principles to help you organize space and time for:
⚡︎ ideating
⚡︎ auditing
⚡︎ prioritizing
⚡︎ negotiating
⚡︎ creating a path towards lightweight, actionable systems that can handle scaling up and down. -
Cross-functional partners try talking to designers, copywriters, or developers, but don’t always share their language…which has led to misunderstanding, frustration, and avoiding conversations altogether. Chronically bypassing creatives due to common communication gaps costs time and money. Let me clear something up:
(1) As humans solving problems, we’re ALL creative. (2) What we call “Creatives” in the workplace are people just like you, working in unique disciplines, domains, and areas of expertise. (3) Good news: I can show you ways to bridge the communication gap.
Partners don’t have to give up on asking for what they need. They might simply need a creative insider to point them towards a conversational adjustment.
Personal philosophyResults naturally spill out of the ways we notice, the ways we learn, and the ways we move.
Prioritize, act, reflect, adapt. That’s how I lead. Imagine your team leaning further into their gifts and moving from reactive to adaptive…building a culture that raises the status quo without forcing it. Read more…
I might be the right match for you if:
Opportunities have been sitting in the should/would/what if pile. You KNOW they could make a wider impact if you could just move progress forward.
Creative systems and processes are working okay-ish, but things feel bumpy and you want proof that improvements are already hiding in plain sight.
Bold prioritization is valued and you’re ready to identify which tried-and-true tactics can be streamlined into a lighter workflow (so your team can innovate where it counts).
The vision and is clear and trusting your team to help solve for the mission with more autonomy is the goal.
Q.
Did your working methods come naturally to you?
A.
Picture me throwing a BIG. JUICY. SLAB. OF. NO! down on the table.
Lots of trial and error, people. I started life as an observant, sensitive, disorganized artist who ran purely on impulse. I combine those natural instincts with a willingness to learn hacks that help me work with unnatural constraints and pressure. Building objective muscle has been crucial for getting unstuck in the face of conflicting opinions and subjective creative feedback. I still have to work at it—so I advocate for what’s adaptable and holds up over time.
If I can learn, anyone can.
If we vibe and are willing to put in the reps together, we create compound wins over time.
“Lisa is the delightfully improbable locus of deeply intuitive, rigorous and intentional, wacky and exuberant, and endlessly curious. To experience Lisa’s art is to experience her as a colleague is to experience her as a person out in the world. That is to say, she is authentic, and present, and all-in.”
BETH, Copy leadCurrently reading
There’s no substitute for learning THROUGH action, but a good resource opens my mind and inspires direction.
Technology has a rich and natural history. Is what you’re building driven by profit motives but lacking vision? This read is a gentle nudge to explore that.
It’s easy to confuse many irons in the fire with productivity. This read holds principles worth testing somewhere in life or work.
The scroll that once felt expansive now feels like a contraction, and how I want to engage is unclear. When things are unclear, I step back and see what reveals itself.