👋 CJ here
I design systems that humans can trust
What is systems design?
My systems design framework is informed primarily by two other established disciplinse: life cycle assessment (LCA) and service design. Systems design focuses on the following:
Interconnectedness
In any organization, no element operates independently. Every part of a team contributes to the whole, ensuring the organism’s vitality. Leveraging a design framework to map out the interconnectedness of an organization is imperative to understanding how the actions and consequences of one side impacts others.
Atomic Parts
The most sustainable way to fix a broken system is by first understanding its most atomic parts. Atomic parts can be the people who carry out actions, products that carry out actions, or the actions themselves. In a private healthcare practice, this could be understanding how office managers work with insurance claims. In a large financial institution, an atomic part could be understanding how an associate inputs assumptions into a financial model. In systems design, an atomic focus means understanding and aligning with the motivations of the people doing the work.
Alignment of Internal and External Motivations
One of the most effective and efficient organizational alignment is when the motivations and wants of the customer/user/client are aligned with the motivations and actions of the employees. Aligning every action of an organization to their end user’s wanted outcome is one of the most powerful tools that can drive real business innovation.
We need to intentionally build organizations to rebuild trust in our larger systems, be that health, government, fashion, or finance. By understanding our collective wants and needs, we can design systems in which we can live, trust, and thrive.
What I’m Informed By
I am a systems designer with more than a design background.
Throughout my career, I’ve worn a handful of hats in a number of industries: healthcare, industrial design and supply chain ecology, environmental engineering, finance, construction, architecture, and food service.
Every hat has informed my ethos on systems design. My exposure to a number of industries only serves to underscore the importance of creating customer-focused systems and industries that we humans trust.
Tap or click on the hats below to read more.
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At Atelier Ten, a NYC-based studio of environmental designers and engineers, I consulted internationally-recognized architecture firms on making their building masterpieces as environmentally sound as possible. My foci included water redesign (e.g., greywater reuse), materials selection, and lighting/energy analysis.
Just a few projects:
Metropolitan Museum of Art ("The Met")
MoMA SF
Sloan Memorial Kettering Cancer Center
Harvard University residential colleges
Frick Pittsburgh Museum and Gardens
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Do we invest $5 billion of Australia's national pension into a tried-and-true gas power plant, or do we invest in a higher-risk higher-reward energy project that's all solar and storage?
^ My role at the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) was to attempt and answer these types of billions-dollar questions. Through a combination of policy and engineering-based research, I assisted the financial model to make more informed decisions that would both impact the environment and impact millions of Australian citizens' future retirement funds.
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At Cypress Creek Renewables, a large-scale behind-the-meter solar and storage development firm, I worked with legal, project finance, and construction. There, my role was to close financing rounds to allow for construction and operations to commence on hundreds of solar farms across the United States.
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I led UX and service design for all-things debt, most notably loan products and services to our customers. I managed a team of designers and researchers to ship the bank's first digital application for any of its financial products. I regularly leveraged the service design model to align the goals and motivations across 5-7 internal teams
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I've been slinging dough 🥖 and dough 💸 since I was 9 years old.
Over the course of 2 decades (and counting) and 3 restaurants, I've proudly taken on every role imaginable that makes a small brick-and-mortar business tick.
A few projects that have shaped my ethos:
Investing in affordable housing for our employees
Navigating the Payment Protection Program (PPP) application during the pandemic
integrating recent trends and historical sales to redesign menus and offerings
making really good pies
From students to executives, I teach and facilitate design thinking-based workshops for multiple audiences
Teaching
2023, Stanford d.School, Design for Early Health Equity MakeShift (Teacher, Producer)
2022, Stanford d.School, Redesigning Finance: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (Lecturer)
2021, Stanford d.School, Redesigning Finance: Post-Disaster Recovery (Student Coach)
Corporate Offsite Facilitation
2024, Stanford School of Medicine, General Pediatrics Retreat
2024, Silicon Valley Bank’s Startup Banking Retreat
2023, Silicon Valley Bank’s Lending Innovation Retreat
2023, Silicon Valley Bank’s Startup Banking Retreat
