Easy problems don’t need me.

I get called for the other kind.

Untangling messy briefs, aligning rooms, and turning amorphous strategic visions into something a team can actually build. Throw in specialized industries like financial services, enterprise SaaS, and emerging tech, and the challenges don’t get much more complex.

A picture of Ellie looking to the side

The problems worth taking seriously are rarely the ones that look hard. They’re the ones that seem obvious until you start pulling threads.

The work I’m most proud of lives in two categories: creating AI-integrated products in complex, regulated B2B contexts — like an agricultural credit marketplace where we needed to help buyers trust a proprietary AI risk score with real money on the line — and ensuring smart people with diverse expertises walk out of the room aligned. Turns out they use lot of the same muscles.

  • Ellie is the real deal – a true UX unicorn who humbly wields her human-centric, multi-skilled talents to solve her stakeholders most challenging problems.

    Arin LoPrete, Executive Director of Product Design

  • Ellie not only brings all the essential hard skills you'd expect from top-tier talent, but she also fosters a collaborative and psychologically safe environment wherever she goes.

    Letícia Machiavelli, Senior Product Manager

  • Ellie is one of the most supportive partners and highly skilled product design leads I've ever had the pleasure of collaborating with. I'd kill to work with her again!

    Suzy Bowen, Product Manager

  • Ellie led one of the most effective strategic workshops I've ever had the pleasure of participating in, ensuring we kicked off with full alignment. She became an invaluable platform design and strategy partner and was critical to the success of our MVP launch.

    Ashley Phillips, Head of Programs

Experience

Principal Product Researcher & Designer
Unqork · 2025–Present
Enterprise no-code platform. Foundational AI research and a ground-up platform experience overhaul across multiple complex workflows.

Principal Product Designer
Traive · 2024
First-of-its-kind agricultural credit marketplace, idea to development-ready in six months in a complex multicultural environment.

Strategy & Design Consultant
Independent · 2023–2024
Various projects. Civic engagement platform for Builders Movement that captured 30k+ Tennessee weigh-ins in the first month.

Lead Product Designer & Manager
Candy Digital · 2022–2023
Netflix partnership platform and NFT product strategy. Webby Award–winning Stranger Things ARG.

Principal UX Researcher & Designer
eko · 2021–2022
Ran the research function for the interactive e-commerce video group.

Principal UX Design & Research Consultant · Capco · 2018–2021
Embedded UX lead for major financial services clients. Commercial bank application redesign and global wealth management reporting.

Lead UX Designer
ES99 · 2017–2018
Sole UX designer in a multidisciplinary digital branding team.

(Find the deep lore on LinkedIn!)

Download Resume (PDF)
Download Resume (PDF)

My Principles

Trust is a garden, not a given. You can’t force it, only create conditions for it to grow.

Clarity about what we’re building, why, and for whom, is itself a deliverable.

Take the work seriously, have fun with the rest. Ego doesn’t move us forward.

Based in Chicago. Looking for a hybrid role on a close-knit team where decisions stick, the problems are worth chewing on, and the people are good company.