Every Step a Strategy,
Leading Me to Design Strategy.
This is my arc. Not a resume in prose, but the thinking that shaped how I lead, decide, and build. Its meaning unfolds only when read in full.
Who am I really trying to become
I asked myself this early and I keep asking it often.
❌ Not a designer who executes briefs.
❌ Not a researcher who delivers decks.
✅ I want to become someone who understands how decisions are made and then reshape them.
Personal notes I keep coming back to:
▶️️ Leadership is not visibility. It is clarity.
▶️ Impact compounds when you influence how teams think, not just what they ship.
▶️ Good strategy feels obvious in hindsight and uncomfortable in the moment.
What problem am I actually obsessed with
At first, I thought it was aesthetics. Then usability. Then behavior. The truth revealed itself slowly.
‼️ I am obsessed with the invisible logic behind choices.
‼️ Why people trust one product and abandon another.
‼️ Why some ideas spread effortlessly while others stall despite being better.
That curiosity pulled me from making things look right to understanding why things work at all.
Where did this way of thinking begin
With a pencil and a misunderstanding. I liked drawing, so I was labeled artistic. What no one saw yet was that I was trying to understand the world, not decorate it.
I earned my training at the National Institute of Design (NID), India’s most selective design institution, where roughly 100 students are admitted each year from over 50,000 applicants nationwide. The goal was not to create stylists, but systems thinkers.
I entered NID to study Textiles, but what stayed with me was not fabric or form. I realized I did not care about patterns as objects. I cared about how patterns moved through people, culture, and systems.
That was the moment I stopped asking how something looks and started asking why it matters.
When did design stop being about craft and start becoming about consequence
In the Northeast Himalayas. My first defining project was not glamorous. It was ethnographic research in high altitude terrain designing healthcare clothing for pregnant women.
There were cultural constraints. There were physical barriers. There were real risks if we got it wrong.
When the work led to a 40% increase in customer reach, I understood this clearly. Design is not the sketch. Design is survival, access, and outcomes you can measure.
That moment quietly reset my standards forever.
Why did I choose to learn the language of business
Because influence requires fluency. I knew that to shape decisions at scale, insight alone was not enough.
So, I moved to San Francisco and earned an MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts. I learned how strategy travels inside organizations. How incentives shape behavior. How research earns power when it connects directly to revenue, risk, and growth.
How do I operate as a strategist today
By architecting intelligence, not just generating insights.
What that looks like in practice:
At Google, decoding behavior across 520 million Next Billion Users and leading foundational work that shaped Save and Share and Scan and Pay for Android 13.
At Ipsos, embedding myself in high anxiety journeys from PayPal merchants defining Fastlane value to Bank of America homebuyers navigating mortgages.
At Optym, defining target customer profiles and go to market strategy for SaaS trucking platforms, contributing to a 10 percent annual revenue increase.
The throughline is simple: "I help teams see the system they are actually designing for."
What has changed in how I lead
I no longer optimize for standing out. I optimize for trust. I think beyond the user moment to the organizational ripple.
I understand that every research decision touches product velocity, technical debt, brand equity, and the bottom line.
Personal rules I lead by:
▶️ Take ownership beyond your job description
▶️ Stay close to ambiguity longer than most
▶️ Think in systems and decades, not sprints and screens
▶️ Say the uncomfortable insight clearly and early
What am I ready for now
To lead at the level where direction matters more than execution. Where shaping how teams think is as important as what they build. Where research is not a function but a strategic advantage.
This story is not about perfection. It is about intentional growth, hard pivots, and choosing depth over speed again and again.
I am ready for the next challenge. The kind that requires judgment, trust, and long-term thinking.