Product & Innovation Leader

I turn complex operations into simple, shippable products that drive growth and clients love 😍.

Product and innovation leader with a background in design. I step into complex environments, identify where value actually lives ✨, and help teams turn that into products customers use and businesses can scale 🏆. Known for moving quickly, asking the right questions, and leaving teams stronger than I found them. 💪🏻

What I Actually Do

Serve first, set high bars, make learning visible, credit the team, own the outcomes.

Impact

  • Invented and launched a digital yearbook platform used by millions of students

  • Built and scaled design teams from the ground up (0 → 20+)

  • Led enterprise-wide persona and enablement programs across multiple business units

  • Delivered digital products and campaigns reaching millions of users globally

  • Helped organizations align product, marketing, and customer strategy

    • Pattern-finding in messy, regulated domains

    • Rapid discovery → testable prototypes → confident bets

    • Clear writing & executive storytelling that align stakeholders

    • Design systems and GTM enablement that actually get used

    • Hands-on with AI to speed research and synthesis

    • Product strategy

    • UX leadership

    • Research & synthesis

    • Design systems

    • Brand/experience alignment

    • GTM enablement

    • Help teams move faster with clarity and confidence

    • Comfortable leading teams or shipping independently

    • Process and deliverables evolve with evidence, not habit

    • Coach and mentor by example—craft reviews, pairing, playbooks

    • Customer-obsessed: who/why/what/when/where drives every decision

Clients

Trusted by product, marketing, and executive teams across Fortune 500 and growth companies.

Recent Focus

Livingston
International

Brought in to improve product quality and uncover new growth opportunities across SMB and enterprise segments. Expanded from UX oversight into product strategy, customer research, and organizational enablement.

ROLE: IC + Initiative Lead • SCOPE: Research, strategy, and enablement

  • Design + UX oversight

    • Go to in-house consultant on all product deliverables.

    • Worked very closely with product, development and agencies to ensure world-class delivery.

  • Enterprise Personas

    • Partnered across all lines of business to produce extensive customer research

    • Produced six core personas aligning with executive leadership team

    • Rolled out a company-wide enablement program to drive adoption and proficiency focusing initially on sales, marketing, and product.

    • Outcomes: Single source of truth, team empowerment, clearer prioritization, and faster alignment from discovery to GTM. High praise from executive leadership.

Spotlight Projects

Happy Clients

  • Charlie is one of the most creative forces I’ve had the pleasure of working with. He’s amazingly talented at the intersection of customer and data with a tenacity for execution. Charlie’s a great team leader, collaborator and partner. Charlie has consistently delivered high value, competitively advantageous projects on time and on budget no matter the industry or company, which as a client sponsor I’ve really appreciated. Truly a gem to work with.

    Emily Ashworth, Operating Partner, Platinum Equity

  • Charlie knows what he's talking about but is a very willing collaborator. He listens and is able to present his opinions, ideas, guidance and direction in a congenial, easy-to-digest manner. On a project that is as deeply personal to an organization as its intranet, consultants who can become one of the internal team quickly and easily are prized. Charlie managed it

    Caroline Siemers, Communications, ActivisionBlizzard

  • I found collaboration time with Charlie to be some of the most valuable of my career. He has an uncanny knack of considering multiple perspectives when solving a problem, but still staying on track to deliver what is best for the project and the team. He is flexible to what the situation dictates while still holding to core objects and keeping the product on track. I also found him willing and eager to take on challenges and responsibilities that were often outside his mandate, but still vital to the success of our project.

    Sean Lanning, Lead Software Engineer, Livingston International

How I work

Understand the business — goals, constraints, where value is created

Find the opportunity — customer insight + white space

Make it tangible — concepts, prototypes, direction

Align teams — get leadership and execution moving together

Ship and iterate — focus on real-world outcomes, not theory

Open to product and UX Leadership opportunities

Contact me
View my Linkedin Profile

How I can help

Product direction and innovation

Customer insight and opportunity identification

Early-stage concepting and validation

Fixing unclear or slow-moving teams

Design and product leadership (interim or embedded)