Confidentiality notice
My work at Google is focused on highly sensitive cybersecurity and privacy initiatives. To comply with strict non-disclosure agreements, all proprietary data, live interfaces, and specific workflows have been omitted. This case study focuses exclusively on high-level strategy, organizational architecture, and publicly communicable outcomes.
Challenge
Google's internal cybersecurity tools were fragmented and reliant on manual, toilsome processes, creating critical operational risks for Alphabet's infrastructure.
Strategy
I built a global design organization from scratch (scaling 0 to 30) and led the integration of AI to automate threat detection other high stakes workflows.
Results
Achieved significant business and user impact, maintained 96% team retention since 2019, and unified the approach to cyber defense UX.
Challenge
Parachuting into Google
In 2019, I was recruited into Google with a mandate that sounded simple on paper, but was staggering in reality: establish the first dedicated UX function within the company's massive Privacy, Safety & Security (PSS) organization. The mission was to "keep everyone safe—at scale". That meant protecting Google and all of Alphabet's massive, ever-growing infrastructure and the personal data of ~4.5 billion users from the world's most sophisticated threat actors, including nation state attacks.
I had parachuted into an organization of thousands of software engineers as the sole UX professional and quickly realized that the organization was suffering from a classic enterprise problem: organic uncoordinated growth. These were world class teams composed of world-leading experts, however their software was described as "borderline unusable." The tooling ecosystem used to defend the internet's most valuable assets was powerful but fragmented, littered with bugs, lacking cohesive user journeys.
These weren't just frustrated users. This was operational risk in a high stakes environment.
Over the next few years, I didn't just design products; I designed an entire organization and scaled from a solo practice to a global team with over 30 professionals. We've transformed the fragmented technical landscape into a well-oiled business machine.
Strategy
Laying UX foundations
My strategy for building the new design org was based on four key pillars:
Organizational design for scale
I adopted a centralized team model to balance deep project engagement with the flexibility to shift resources as organizational priorities changed. My hiring strategy initially prioritized strong UX generalists capable of handling high ambiguity, before eventually shifting into more specialized roles.
Building strong user experience foundations
I established the organization's first UX research practice, and created a centralized repository to democratize user insights where none previously existed. I also drove the adoption of an enterprise-grade Design System (based on Google Material) which reduced technical debt and ensured consistency across the tooling ecosystem.
Defining a shared vision & strategy
To unify the growing team, I facilitated annual workshops to co-define the team's core values, strategy, and mission: "make it easy to protect and defend Alphabet." This focus on shared purpose has helped the team drive significant product, user, and business impact.
Establishing operational process rigor
To combat the lack of existing user-centered processes, I implemented operational frameworks and engagement models that drove accountability and streamlined decision-making in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment.
2019
2021
2023
2025
P&O
UX organization growth
Results
Select highlights
I'm immensely proud of the things I've achieved at Google over the past 7 years, and even more excited for some of the things we have in front of us. These are a few highlights —
Launches
8
Led the launch of 8 new products from concept through to launch and landing
Unification
IAM
Unified dozens of Identity & Access Management tools into a single product
Security
>300%
User improvement in detecting malicious scripts when leveraging LLM-augmented experiences