Transforming skills with a holistic ecosystem
My role in shaping the skills experience
Skills and AI are Cornerstone’s most crucial areas, shaping its vision and success. I lead design for the skills domain, impacting 135 million users across 7,000 organizations globally
5 projects
As the primary architect and decision-maker, I ensure every project aligns with client needs and business goals, driving impactful results across the organization
3 engineering pods
I oversee three engineering pods, each consisting of a lead product manager, an engineering lead, 4–5 engineers, and 2 quality analysts
3 centers of excellence
Collaboration with Systems, Accessibility, and Content Design is a critical aspect of my work to ensure designs meet stringent WCAG AA web accessibility standards ,and are scalable
The Challenge: Bridging skills gaps and redefining product identity
As organizations shift to skills-based hiring—with 73% prioritizing skills over degrees — 87% still face critical skills gaps, leading to costly external hiring
Despite the potential of internal mobility to save time, reduce costs, and retain talent, it remains underutilized
Additionally, skills lacked a clear product identity at Cornerstone
Positioned as the "golden thread" across solutions, clients struggled to visualize and adopt a cohesive skills strategy, hindering its impact
The opportunity
Leveraging Cornerstone’s product suite, backed by 25 years of expertise and 54,000 out-of-the-box skills, we aim to reimagine skills as a unified domain
Simplify skills-based hiring for an agile workforce
Bridge gaps through up-skilling and reskilling
Enable internal mobility to retain talent
This vision will empower clients to confidently adopt skills strategies, seamlessly bridging workforce gaps and driving readiness for the future of work
The plan: Define a unified blueprint for skills
In a 4+1 in a box collaboration across product, engineering, marketing, design, and customer initiatives, we created the skills user journey and skills playbook to help clients integrate skills seamlessly into Cornerstone’s ecosystem. This provided a clear roadmap to empower clients in adopting skills strategies with confidence
The skills journey was presented during a workshop with Electrolux, Nestlé, and DHL in Europe, showcasing how skills align with our three key personas:
Employees
Using Skills profile to track, manage, and develop skills
Managers
Tracking People matrix to align team skills with goals
Admins
Harnessing Skills studio for data management
Skills profile: A hub for skills management
We transformed the existing Skills profile into a centralized hub for tracking, managing, and developing skills. Guided by competitive audits, client feedback, and stakeholder workshops, we addressed key pain points by introducing:
Grid views for scalability and better organization.
Visualizations to identify skills gaps at a glance.
Actionable guidance to help users bridge those gaps effectively.
Key actor
Employee
Notable clients
Bank of America, BMW, McDonalds
My role
Design lead
Impact: 60% increase in adoption
People Matrix: Driving managerial impact
We designed the People matrix to help managers align team skills with business goals, identify gaps, and plan up-skilling.
Built with input from Penn State and Bosch, it integrates data like performance reviews and skill ratings for a complete team view.
With an optimized layout and scalable design, this set the foundation for future training projects, as their progress details will also be integrated into the matrix view.
Impact: 3x increase in product adoption
Skills studio: Redefining admin experiences
As the first skills project to adopt GenAI, Skills Studio delivers smarter insights for admins. I managed the MVP launch with an external vendor and later redesigned the home screen based on feedback from semiconductor and healthcare leaders.
The new dashboard visualizes skills health and includes an activity feed, offering a dynamic and intuitive experience.
This project set a benchmark for accessibility, embedding WCAG AA standards into the design process with the accessibility team.
Key actor
Admin
Notable clients
ASML, DHL, Edward Jones, UBS, Novartis
My role
Design lead
Impact: Gained 100 new customers
Industry recognition and accolades
Cornerstone’s skills technology has been widely recognized, and I’m proud to have contributed to its design and functionality.
Craig Weiss Awards
2023 Best Skills in an LMS: Recognized for unmatched skills management and exceptional user experience, excelling in over 90% of Weiss’s evaluation
2024 Mid-Year Rankings: Weiss reaffirmed Cornerstone Galaxy as the best platform for skills management, stating, “Cornerstone still leads the pack”
eLearning Industry Award
2024 Award-Winning LMS Tools: Highlighted for innovation in assessing and developing employee skills
Publications
Josh Bersin described Cornerstone Galaxy as a “skills-powered talent platform”, emphasizing its AI integration and market leadership
Ben Eubanks praised Skills Studio’s Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) flexibility and the Cornerstone Companion, a generative AI tool transforming user experiences