As a systems-thinker and facilitator, I create frameworks that align teams and accelerate delivery across the full product lifecycle.

¡Hola! I’m Sylvia.

I help teams translate research insights, stakeholder needs and business objectives into intuitive products and experiences that deliver measurable impact.

I'm a design leader with 15+ years bridging business strategy, product design and brand execution. I've led design and product initiatives for enterprises and startups including IBM, NTT, Hitachi Digital Services, and Context Nature (venture-backed climate tech).

Whether designing and testing new products, scaling brand activations, or structuring design systems, I bring order to complexity and focus on outcomes that create customer value and business results.

I’m curious, optimistic and action-biased.

Growing up in Puerto Rico shaped my purview of the world: the geographic constraints taught me to be resourceful, the ocean’s horizon instilled curiosity for what lies beyond, and the warmth of a close-knit community made me joyful and optimistic. These characteristics inform how I work:

  • when faced with challenges, I’m resourceful, nimble and biased towards action

  • when dealing with novel issues, I’m curious to learn from different perspectives and be inspired by them

  • my contagious joyfulness and optimism helps me bring others into a safe space of possibility and imagination

When not designing,  I love to share my career journey with the hope of educating, inspiring and empowering underrepresented groups in design and tech.

Having worked with large companies and startups alike, I serve organizations by helping with:

Design Leadership, Management & Operations

  • Establish design process and streamline cross-department collaboration 

  • Grow impact and agility of UX across organizations

  • Help structure the design organization, define roles and build capacity

Product Design

  • Facilitate design sprints with cross-functional teams and contribute to strategy, concept & product definition

  • Identify and materialize new market opportunities; have helped take products from 0 to 1 and through to successful exits

  • Design, manage build out and deliver functional experiences that increase engagement

Market-fit, Branding & Growth

  • Fine-tune market fit through brand positioning and content strategy

  • Create systems to scale vision from product to marketing

  • Develop processes and tools to enable quick experimentation and iteration

Systems Thinking

  • Leverage systems thinking to align multiple stakeholders and co-create new models for delivering products and services

  • Identify opportunities for innovation, implement equity-focused UX design practices that increase addressable market, and establish systems for improved resource use

Let’s collaborate! Drop me a line or connect with me via LinkedIn.


Speaking & Media Appearances

3 Lessons from a Startup that went bust, Lightning Speaker at Y Combinator Startup School Climate Startups mentor event (preso here), at Circuit Launch 2022, Oakland, CA

Being Determined to Meet Net-Zero by 2030, Panelist, at Horasis Global Meeting 2022, Virtual

A Morning with the Best of the Badass Bosses, Co-organizer at She Runs It 2020, San Francisco, CA

Design’s Evolving Role in Business, Keynote speaker at Más Cartagena 2019, Cartagena, Colombia

Latinas Exitosas, Television interview at Univision’s Despierta Área de la Bahía 2019, San Jose, CA

Creating a Legacy of Giving, Panelist at Horasis Global Meeting 2019, Cascais, Portugal

Leveraging Your Personal Brand to Effectively Lead, Keynote speaker at the Stanford University’s Breakthrough Conference 2018, Palo Alto, CA

Key Elements to Start a Business: Vision, Talent & Energy Keynote speaker at Talent Land 2018, Guadalajara, Mexico

A Conversation with Latina Moms in Tech, Panelist at Univision Tech Center 2018, San Jose, CA, covered on the Your Technology segment of Univision News

Prototyping Leadership: A Workshop for Women in Design, Organizer & facilitator at SheLeads San Francisco Design Week 2017, Mozilla HQ, San Francisco, CA

The Path to Leadership: A Conversation with Jamie Myrold, Adobe’s VP Design, Organizer & moderator at SheLeads Women’s Day 2017, Adobe, San Francisco, CA

Design(ing) Women In Charge, Keynote speaker at America’s Summit, Women Entrepreneurs Day, Facebook hq 2016, Menlo Park, CA

Design Engineering: How Innovators Create Solutions, Panelist at Wonder Women Tech 2016, Long Beach, CA