I'm an engineering leader who helps growing orgs find their footing, without losing what made them good in the first place.

The situation

Growth brings a lot at once. New teams, new challenges, maybe an acquisition, and all of a sudden there are bigger-company expectations on a team that grew up doing things its own way.

The people who built it are still great at building it. What's usually missing is someone who can help it grow up without breaking what works.

Where I fit

Most of my career has been spent in orgs going through exactly that kind of growth. I understand how larger organizations think and what they expect, and I stay close to the teams doing the work.

That makes me the translation layer between a core team and the wider business, so each side gets what the other needs.

How I work

1. Build trust first. I start with the core team and try really hard to make it a safe, trusted place to be honest about what's working and what isn't.
2. Build on what works. I don't show up with some rigid framework we all have to follow. We figure out which pieces and tools actually work for us, and build on those.
3. Let the team own it. Nothing stays the same forever. The way we work ends up belonging to the team, so it keeps evolving on its own instead of depending on me.

What it looks like after

For the exec who brought me in, it's usually a big sense of relief. There's an organized, systematic way of running things that the rest of the business understands.

And for the team, it still feels like their team, just with what they needed to keep growing.

How I think

Over the years I've collected the frameworks and tools I actually reach for, and I keep them here, in the open. They cover coaching conversations, product and UX work, and business planning.

None of them are rules. They're a toolkit, and the skill is knowing which one fits the situation in front of you.

• Start with users Persona-based empathy research and emotional journey mapping, so product decisions start from real people.
• Hypothesis-driven decisions Turning a question like "should we lower the price?" into a value hypothesis you can actually test.
• Business planning sequence Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, Customer Journey Map, then a roadmap, in that order.
• Founder equity and sweat equity A contribution table and vesting approach for early partners splitting ownership.

Background

I'm an electrical engineer by training, with a specialization in biomedical engineering from the University of Alberta. I co-founded Signia, which won the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce Ignition Award for best startup in 2012. In 2019 I was Code for Canada's first Product Manager Fellow.

I still like building things. I've won a few hackathons along the way: Microsoft's World's Best App (2006), the Tizen Challenge (2013) and Bunnyshell Stack Jam (2023). Before any of that, I won an award for teaching science.

Let's connect

I'm always happy to compare notes with other leaders working through growth, team building, or bringing AI into how their teams deliver.