Scaling
Impact.
Three designers. Seven years. One Canadian unicorn.
The Story
I joined Copperleaf to lead the design and development of two new SaaS offerings alongside their flagship product. We shipped them. Over the next seven years, the company went public at $1B CAD on the TSX. My job shifted from making things to making the conditions for great things to happen.
Every year brought a different challenge. Early on: credibility. Proving design could drive product decisions, not just decorate them. Then scale: hiring right, building practices, defining what “good” looked like at Copperleaf specifically. Then org evolution: making the case for an empowered product trio model over the structure we’d inherited.
The stat I’m most proud of isn’t a product metric. We maintained 80% team retention over seven years, in an industry where design talent churns fast. People stayed because the work was meaningful, the culture was healthy, and they had room to grow.
Peak Team (22 people)
At IPO in 2021, the team stood at 20. We grew to 22 in the year that followed.
Details
Role
Senior Director of Design
Company
Copperleaf Technologies
Period
2016–2023
Domain
Enterprise Asset Management SaaS
Focus Areas
Year by Year
Foundation building
- Identified design leadership vacuum and pivoted to research
- Started first iteration of design system
- Promoted to Design Team Lead
Client-led innovation
- Founded design system team
- Led design of Copperleaf Value (3rd product pillar)
- Onsite client research and rapid iteration
Design-led innovation
- Led 4 Google Design Sprints with senior leadership
- Scaled design system to 3 cross-functional teams
- Client workshops including Southern California Edison
Tactical execution
- Welcomed Jake Knapp to lead workshop
- Introduced product analytics
- Formalized triad model: Design + PM + Dev
Copperleaf Labs
- Led product redesign valuation
- Released public Copperleaf Design System
- Created Copperleaf Labs innovation brand
Unicorn milestone
- Copperleaf IPO at $1B CAD on TSX
- Co-created discovery/design/development framework
- Designed OKR framework for Product Development
Realizing the impact
- Full design system integration
- Org-wide innovation workshop: 1,700+ ideas, 199 participants
- Design system leveraged by 9 cross-functional teams