Overview

Led the establishment of a Community of Practice (COP) within Cetera’s Digital Experience Design (DXD) organization to strengthen design maturity, knowledge sharing, and human-centered leadership across the company.

The COP was created as a structured forum where designers, product partners, and cross-functional leaders could learn from one another, align on best practices, and grow together. Grounded in three pillars:

• Domain

• Community

• and Practice

The initiative focused on elevating UX craft, promoting consistent standards, and creating space for open collaboration beyond individual teams.

My Role

As a lead, I partnered closely with another Lead UX Designer and worked across Product, Digital Solutions, and broader organizational stakeholders to define objectives, establish cadence, and design a scalable operating model. This included shaping topic roadmaps, facilitation guidelines, presentation standards, and a shared knowledge repository (…we used Airtable) to ensure learnings were accessible and reusable over time.

Beyond process and structure, the COP fostered a culture of trust and curiosity. Encouraging designers to step into teaching and leadership roles, share unfinished thinking, and collectively problem-solve. For me personally, this project marked a shift from individual contribution to organizational influence, strengthening my skills in facilitation, mentorship, and systems thinking while reinforcing the impact design leadership can have at scale.

Results

Established a bi-monthly, cross-functional COP that scaled UX knowledge sharing, strengthened collaboration, and deepened my leadership in facilitation and change management.