For the past two years, I’ve led the product design team at MoneyGroup, focusing on empowering my team by ensuring they have a voice and the resources needed to succeed. I’ve championed learning and development through tutorials, lunch-and-learns, and other creative initiatives to enhance design maturity across the company. One of my most significant contributions has been creating a growth path for designers at every stage of their journey with the company—a framework that has since been adopted across departments. Additionally, I’ve established operating procedures for the product department and implemented brand guidelines to ensure consistency and excellence across our products.​

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How did I get here?

 

I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts in 2002, or as an intern once told me, the "Ancient Times". My thesis work focused on the Computer as an Artistic Medium. The first step in my Designer career was at Milestone Communications, where I worked as a Graphic Designer creating brand designs, landing pages and collateral material for special events and BTL advertising campaigns.

After three and a half years I decided to venture into the advertising world, where I spent 10 years creating experiences for a wide range of brands. From Walgreens to Panasonic, Heineken, Jack Daniel's, Toyota, Lexus, Scion, Wendy's, Trident Gum and many more. I started out as a Sr. Visual Designer at a Boutique Agency called Eko Advertising, which then became a part of Euro RSCG (now Havas Group) where I worked my way up to Art Director. By 2008 I embarked on a freelance creative journey which took me to many different marketing and advertising agencies, large and small, local and global. In 2011 I decided to sharpen up my web design skills and study abroad at ELISAVA School of Design in Barcelona. I learned how to manage a digital project from start to finish, and got to dabble in Javascript, Php and ActionScript ( RIP ). I also travelled a lot through Europe, which gave me the chance to see advertising and graphic design from different countries and perspectives.

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Upon returning I dove back into the advertising world as a Digital Art Director for Badillo Saatchi and Saatchi, where I had the opportunity to be part of some of the most personally rewarding projects of my career. I worked my way up to managing digital design with a small group of junior designers. In 2015 I accepted a Senior Digital Art Director position at J Walter Thompson (now VML). For 2 years I worked on digital design for Walgreens, Jack Daniel's, Heineken and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company amongst many others. I learned a lot about all the hard team work that is put into creating award winning projects.

By 2017 I decided to venture into the product side of design to witness how a brand works from the inside. I landed at BOLD, where I had the opportunity to work on their many brands and be exposed to an amazing team of UX Designers and Developers that showed me the ropes, from of how a product is built and tested to non-stop optimized in order to create the best user journey possible.

Around the same time I took on a few freelance projects, putting together and managing a team of 2 developers and 1 designer to work on landing pages and web banner campaigns for Toyota.

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By 2019, I joined MoneyGroup as its first designer for the content team, establishing design expectations, building brands from scratch, and delivering impactful visuals like infographics and animations for platforms like Money.com, ConsumersAdvocate.org Digg.com and The FourOneOne.org I recruited and mentored new team members, eventually earning a promotion to Product Design Lead.

 

Through it all, I’ve grown as both a designer and leader, embracing every high and low along the way. Each step has shaped me, and I wouldn’t trade this journey for anything.