Hi, I’m aL

Based in the Bay Area, I came up through design, art direction, animation, UX and front-end development, and I've spent the last decade leading creative teams embedded with Google, YouTube, and now as a designer with Salesforce.

At Firewood (later merged with MediaMonks), I was the third creative hire in San Francisco, helped grow the creative team past 100, and eventually became Executive Creative Director, co-leading creative on the global Google account and overseeing 120+ creatives. One of my favorite chapters was the YouTube Crew, a global creative and production studio that started as a pitch.

A good friend and mentor always says, "good people are good business," and it's become how I think about building teams. Hire well, connect people, and help them bring their best, for their careers, for each other, and for the work. It's been a joy to watch several of the designers and writers I've worked with go on to lead teams of their own. Many are still friends and collaborators, and these days I probably learn more from them than I ever taught them.

The best ideas fall flat if the execution is flawed, so thinking big and sweating the details go hand in hand. That's a big part of why I never stopped designing, whether it's keynotes, brand identities, motion or UX.