Draft mode — just for you, Kirsten. This essay doesn’t exist yet, and you don’t have to write it — just talk it. Open Granola (or a Claude voice chat, or Voice Memos), read the thought starters below, and answer them out loud like you’re telling a friend over dinner. Twenty minutes of “rambling” is perfect — stories beat summaries, specifics beat theory. Send over the transcript and we’ll shape it into the essay together.
Thought starters
- GDP is an intensely design-led org. What did working inside that culture teach you about aesthetics, taste, and quality?
- How did that experience get into your DNA — what do you notice now that you can’t un-notice?
- You don’t just produce — you align, direct, and act as the creative gut check and backstop. What does that look like in practice? Give an example of a call you made.
- How does an ops leader earn the standing to weigh in on creative? How do you give creative feedback as a non-designer that designers actually want?
- Where do taste and operations meet? How does caring about how things look change how you run things?
- What’s something beautifully designed — an object, a system, a process — that shaped how you think?