I'm a San Diego-based Product Strategist and Designer with 8+ years of experience turning complex customer problems into intuitive products and measurable business outcomes.
Hey there, I’m Gillian…
I believe good products start with good questions.
For most of my career, I've worked at large tech orgs defining product, content, and UX strategy.
On paper, that meant designing onboarding systems, growth initiatives, and AI-powered products for companies like Intuit, Shopify, BILL, and Experian.
In practice, it meant figuring out why customers were stuck, where businesses were making assumptions, and how teams could turn complexity into something people actually wanted to use.
Over time, I realized the most important decisions weren't happening on the screen. They were happening before the screen existed—in product discussions, research findings, prioritization debates, and the frameworks teams used to make tradeoffs.
Today, I'm most interested in the questions that shape products before they're built:
What problem are we solving? Why does it matter? How do we know we're right?
The best teams I've worked with weren't organized around disciplines.
They were organized around curiosity.
And that's usually where the interesting stuff happens.
What I actually do
Turn insight into alignment
I bring customer insight, product, design, and engineering together around the problem we're solving and a shared path forward.
Make complexity feel simple
Whether it's tax, expense management, e-commerce, or AI, I translate complicated products into experiences people can actually use.
Build AI experiences people can trust
From knowledge systems and retrieval strategies to prompts and behavioral frameworks, I design AI experiences that people can understand and trust.
Think in systems, not screens
From onboarding frameworks to AI experiences, I focus on the structures that shape customer behavior at scale.
Outside of work…
I'm usually reading three books at once, planning a trip I haven't booked yet, or negotiating with my dog, Hank (also known as my Chief Morale Officer).
If you'd like to work together, swap book recommendations, or nerd out about products, AI, and the people who use them, feel free to reach out. My portfolio contains work samples shared for recruiting purposes only. Please contact me for the password.
Otherwise, thanks for stopping by!