Most of what I've led has been complex: multiple teams, stakeholders, and constraints, across many time zones. My job is to create the conditions where designers do their best work, then keep design quality high while we ship.
12 yrs at Hitachi Vantara5 titles → Assistant Director of Product DesignUp to 8 designers, across the US, Europe & Asia
Good design leadership is building the room — the people, the systems, and the standards — so great work keeps happening when I'm not in it.
HOW I LEAD · FOUR PRINCIPLES
01
Grow people past their brief
Over the 3-year VSP One File engagement I grew a five-person distributed team from executing tickets into strategic partners who shaped roadmap and product direction. The lasting win wasn’t the redesign — it was the team that outgrew it.
“He always gave me the confidence to work autonomously, but was present to guide me with all his time and dedication whenever I had questions — design or technical.”
On Tomoe I brought three organizations and 20+ contributors across eight countries into one product direction, with clear lanes instead of overlap, held together through in-person workshops.
I drove adoption of the Next Design System across the platform, replacing a decade of one-off screens with shared components, tokens, and patterns. Around it: research-grounded critique, shared standards, and the discipline to report what didn’t test well, with every miss turned into a ranked ticket. Consistency stopped depending on any one designer being in the room, and reporting the misses is how a design org earns trust with the business.
Start from zero, and stay close enough to build it
Some of my best work started with a blank page in an unfamiliar, deeply technical domain: deciding what the screens even are, and what “good” means, for a category that doesn’t have one yet. On Content Platform S Nodes that meant designing every screen, writing most of the shipped front-end, and shaping the API architecture underneath it. I started as a developer and still build. It’s why I can lead engineering-adjacent work with credibility, and why the design stays honest.
“A rare combination of excellent design skills and a strong development background. His ability to bridge the gap between design and engineering has been invaluable.”
These four I hold to. The rest I work out with the team I’m in, because what a group needs from me changes with the product and the people.
THE UNCOMFORTABLE PART
Not every call feels good.
A small product served a handful of customers, but what it did mattered to them. That team had seen our work and wanted my designers on it. I told them plainly they were behind products carrying real revenue: our entire design organization, designers and leadership together, was under thirty people against a portfolio of dozens of products with engineering teams around the world. The work shipped, with a narrower scope and a longer timeline than any of us wanted, and I picked up what slack I could myself. They were disappointed. They also understood, and I’d make the same call again.
EVANGELIZE THE PRACTICE
Setting the standard means getting the whole org to believe in how the work is made.
DESIGN DAYS · LISBON — presenting the process behind VSP One File to an audience spanning designers through senior leadership across Hitachi Ltd.
THE TEAMS
Distributed by default: never all in one room, rarely in one time zone.
8
designers at peak, reporting to me
6
countries across 5 time zones, on VSP One File alone
20+
contributors across three organizations on Tomoe
Jr → Sr
designers mentored through promotion, across three of my roles
The teams I led spanned the US, Portugal, Spain, England, Holland, Germany, India, and Japan. Handoffs happened while half the team slept, so the work had to survive without me in the room. That is exactly why I lead through systems, standards, and rituals rather than review meetings.
IN THEIR WORDS
The bridge-between-design-and-engineering line isn't mine — it's what the people I've worked with keep saying.
“Eric seamlessly blends deep technical expertise with user-centered design thinking. His ability to bridge the gap between design and engineering has been instrumental in delivering high-quality, scalable solutions.”
Kibo Nakamura Director of Design & UX · managed Eric directly
“One of Eric's standout qualities is his ability to connect with people and foster collaboration. He has a unique talent for bringing teams together.”
“His deep understanding of storage systems — object, block, or file-based — sets him apart. His ability to balance technical innovation with user-centric design was instrumental in shaping the product.”
Ramanuja Dore Senior Director, Global Solution Lead · 5+ years
“I've worked with Eric for 10 years. An extremely thoughtful and insightful expert on design and usability — he keeps a sharp focus on the customer experience.”
Jared Cohen Software Developer · Hitachi Data Systems
“He consistently demonstrated a deep understanding of the technical aspects of our products, and his ability to explain complex concepts is outstanding. Whether I needed help with a challenging task or just some advice, he was always there.”
Vandana Sirakaje Product Designer · reported to Eric
Hire me to lead a team and you get all four at once: someone who grows people, aligns the room, and can still open the file and build.
