Director, Learning Product and AI Strategy, United Way Worldwide
Draw the line in the system, not in a prompt
Learning is where an organization redesigns its work for AI, so I run learning and AI as one job: deciding which work AI should change and setting the limits it runs inside. At United Way Worldwide, I did that job at the headquarters of a network of 1,100+ independent organizations in 36 countries, reporting to the executive office.
Describe a task your team wants AI to do. The brief that comes back is the line I would draw: the real problem, my two questions, the call, and where a person decides.
01
AI course-production agents. United Way Worldwide, 2026
Faster drafting is worthless if expert review becomes the bottleneck.
I put agents on the first draft and redesigned review around them. The agents I built draft only from the organization’s own frameworks and standards, under an operating procedure I set: a subject expert can reject any draft, and nothing ships without the learning team’s quality check. Expert review time per course fell by 78%.
02
Learning platform and course catalog. United Way Worldwide
Every organization in the network chooses its own training, so the courses have to be worth choosing.
I led the platform’s deployment and wrote the standard every course in its catalog, in English and Spanish, had to meet: the learner leaves with something to take back to work, such as a plan or a proposal. Three contract learning experts built courses to that standard under direction I set. Later I moved first drafts to AI agents, with experts holding the veto.
03
AI curriculum and use guide. United Way Worldwide
Staff had AI tools before there was an AI policy, and each organization in the network sets its own rules.
I designed a ten‑course curriculum that opens with a piece of real work, and a use guide that asks two questions of every task: what am I giving the tool, and what happens if the answer is wrong? The guide clears low-risk work quickly and sends only consequential decisions to formal approval. Over-caution counts as a failure too: the target is that no more than 10% of safe tasks get wrongly blocked.
Summarize a published public report
Use it, and check the result.
Draft an update from an internal plan
Approved tool, and a named person owns the draft.
Rank partners for investment from their public websites
Stop for formal approval. It feeds a decision about organizations.
04
NuVuX, 2019 to 2024, and United Way Worldwide
Good ideas stall without support to carry them out.
Every program I design starts from a real problem in the leader’s own organization, and finished plans count ahead of satisfaction. At NuVuX, I led the development of an executive program that took leaders at Rolls‑Royce, Balfour Beatty, Plexus and Peak Scientific from their own problem to a prototype. At United Way, I led onboarding for new CEOs who don’t report to headquarters, and 95% of those who completed it finished a first-60-day plan.
05
An AI product I designed and built, 2026
A teacher doesn’t need a unit for every classroom. She needs one for hers.
I designed and built Alf to learn, first hand, what it takes to ship an AI product whose limits live in the code rather than in a policy. It is planning software for project-based teaching: a teacher enters a grade, a subject and an idea, and gets a full, editable unit in under a minute. The limits are built in: her habits shape future drafts only if she switches that on, there is no chat screen, and the database has no field for student data. The pattern holds anywhere a standard plan meets a real place, which is how I presented it to DC government leaders at GW’s executive AI program in October 2026.
When the plan met the people
The program that worked was the one the teachers owned.
At NuVuX, a school in Glasgow brought us in to build an innovation program. The client was the school, but its board, its leadership, its teachers and its parents all had a stake, and we had set out to change how learning happened without bringing the teachers along. They pushed back, and the Scottish system does not move at the speed we had promised.
Three moves changed it. I trained the teachers so they owned the program instead of having it done to them, and ran open houses so parents understood what it was for. I reset expectations with the board and leadership and redesigned the program to fit the system: two years, finished before national exams. And I built support beyond the school, with Scotland’s Minister for Education and local community programs.
The program grew from fewer than 60 students to every year group, the pilot became a multi-year contract, teacher training became a new line of work that won more, three council schools adopted it, and Education Scotland made a case study of the programs. What I took from it: bring the people who have to make it work into the process early. At United Way, that is how I argued for the first learning platform and for AI, and for treating over-caution as a risk of its own.
Experience
Director, Learning Product and AI Strategy
I ran learning and AI at the headquarters of a network of 1,100+ independent organizations in 36 countries, reporting to the executive office and the Chief Transformation Officer. I persuaded the organization to invest in its first learning platform and in AI, and to treat over-caution as a risk of its own. Then I ran what followed: the platform and its catalog, onboarding for new CEOs, and the agents that draft courses under a procedure I set.
Senior Director, Global Programs
Reporting to the CEO and Chief of Staff, I led client engagements as NuVuX expanded from the UK into Europe, MENA and Australia, with a team of five I hired in Glasgow and the Scotland budget. I turned a pilot into a multi-year contract, launched teacher training as a new line of work, and international partnership income grew 173%. In 2023, I built early AI co-design tools for educators, the start of what became Alf.
MS in Design and Technology, MIT, on a full merit scholarship. Bachelor of Architecture, SCI-Arc.
Contact