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HighGround
VP, Product Design
2022–2025
HighGround was a next-generation performance management platform that reimagined how organizations develop, engage, and retain talent through continuous feedback, recognition, coaching, and goal alignment.
Building the Team
To create consistency across a rapidly growing organization, I established the tools, methodologies, principles, and operating practices that guided how Product, Design, and cross-functional teams researched, collaborated, planned, and delivered.
Designing for Delight
The idea of corporate culture and performance management often sparks dread in people's minds—so we reimagined them completely. Partnering with experts, psychologists, and key customers, we built tools that served HR teams’ needs while giving employees performance and team-building experiences they actually wanted to use.
Becoming Enterprise Ready
When HighGround shifted focus from SMBs to enterprise, “nice-to-haves” became must-haves overnight. We redefined our roadmap through deep research and field validation, scaled our team, and became enterprise-ready within a year—winning world-class clients with offerings like: SOC2 Certification, Internationalization and Localization, Regional Compliance in Canada and Europe, W3C Accessibility, Advanced Reporting, and Multi-tiered Customer Support.
Reaching Higher Ground
To compete in a fast-moving market, we accelerated our learning by running customer engagement and product incubation in parallel. This dual-track approach let us rapidly test new ideas while supporting our agile backlog—helping HighGround emerge as a category leader and ultimately leading to its acquisition by Kazoo.
Voice of the Customer
It's is so simple, so intuitive and we keep having conversations with HighGround about how we can make it even more simple and they're so in-tune to that philosophy.
Dean Carter – VP Human Resources
Patagonia
HighGround ropes in key stakeholders at every level, to ensure high user engagement and success at each of our many locations. It has been very effective in establishing a feedback culture within the organization.
Cheryl Johnson – Chief HR Officer
Echo Global Logistics
For the manager who isn’t used to engaging in regular coaching and recognition, HighGround is a great tool for helping them develop that muscle.
Kent Frazier – VP of Talent
Leiberman Research Worldwide
HighGround helps us to engage our staff, creating a high performance culture and establishing a feedback culture within the organization.
Monica Gustainyte – Human Resources
Intermedix
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