Hello,
I'm Deonna.

Amazon's North American Stores design organization operated a product launch process that was entirely manual; a sprawling, multi-stakeholder GTM workflow spanning Design, Product Management, Engineering, Legal, Marketing, and Finance. Launch intake was managed via fragmented email threads, ad-hoc Slack messages, and disconnected spreadsheets. There was no single source of truth, no standardized SLA framework, and no automated handoff logic between workstreams. The result: chronic launch delays, duplicated effort across teams, and zero real-time executive visibility into pipeline status. At the VP and SVP level, reporting was reactive rather than data-driven.

I was tasked with the end-to-end redesign of the North American Stores GTM product launch process. From intake to post-launch retrospective, with a mandate to eliminate manual bottlenecks, enforce cross-functional accountability at scale, and build an infrastructure that could support hundreds of concurrent product launches globally. The solution needed to integrate with existing tooling (Figma, Slack, Jira, and Airtable), be adopted enterprise-wide within a single quarter, and deliver measurable lifecycle improvements reportable to SVP-level leadership.

I began with a full process audit. First, mapping the existing state documenting every handoff, decision gate, and approval node across all six functions. I identified 14 discrete manual touchpoints that were candidates for automation, and defined a target-state architecture built around Asana as the central orchestration layer.

The redesigned system introduced a structured intake form (Asana Forms) that triggered automatic project creation, pre-populated task dependencies, and routed work to the correct functional owner based on launch type and market scope. I engineered rules-based automation using Asana's workflow builder — configuring conditional logic so that when a design milestone was marked complete, downstream Engineering and Legal tasks were auto-assigned with calculated due dates based on the launch prioritization tier (P0, P1, or P2). This eliminated the single largest manual bottleneck: the hand-off email.

I then implemented Asana AI Studio — configuring AI-powered task summarization, anomaly detection on overdue dependencies, and natural language status reporting. AI Studio's agent-based workflows were configured to auto-generate executive briefing summaries pulled from live project data, replacing the manual Monday morning status report that had previously required 3+ hours of program manager time per week. I also built a custom Asana Dashboard with real-time KPI tiles, launch velocity, headcount, design review cycle time, and cross-functional blockers. This gave VP and SVP stakeholders a live operational view without requiring manual reporting.

The final architecture integrated Asana with Figma via API webhooks, so design file status changes in Figma automatically updated corresponding Asana task states. This helped eliminate double-entry and created a bidirectional data sync between the design and program management layers. Slack notifications were configured as a downstream output, pinging stakeholders only when human intervention was required, reducing notification noise by establishing a clear signal-vs-noise protocol.

By redesigning the North American Stores GTM launch process end-to-end, I delivered a fully automated, scalable infrastructure that measurably accelerated delivery and freed the organization from the overhead of manual coordination. The system I built spanning Asana automation, AI Studio reporting agents, and a Figma API integration became the operational standard for product launch management across the entire North American Stores product, design, and engineering organizations. Also, with real-time executive visibility replacing reactive, manual status reporting at the VP and SVP level.

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In 2020, Apple publicly committed $100 million to its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI), one of the most high-profile corporate equity commitments in tech history. The external partnership arm of REJI, responsible for delivering scholarships, exclusive engineering curriculum, and pipeline programs to 15 HBCUs, lacked the operational infrastructure to execute at that scale. Simultaneously, as an Account Manager supporting B2B, education, and non-profit sectors across the Pittsburgh market, I had direct visibility into how institutional partners, universities, non-profits, and enterprise clients, engaged with Apple's product ecosystem and where friction existed in those relationships.

I was brought in to architect and operationalize the external partnership framework for REJI, building the end-to-end program infrastructure from stakeholder mapping through scholarship delivery, curriculum integration, and talent pipeline activation. Concurrently, my experience as an Account Manager gave me the credibility and relational capital to engage directly with university presidents and institutional administrators, bridging Apple's corporate commitments to real-world institutional needs.

I conducted a stakeholder mapping exercise to identify the decision-makers at each of the 15 HBCU partner institutions, through segmenting contacts by role (President, Dean of Engineering, Director of Career Services) and influence tier. I then led a series of executive engagement meetings directly with university presidents and engineering school administrators, presenting Apple's curriculum offering, scholarship allocation framework, and student pipeline pathway.

On the operational side, I implemented Wrike as the program's PMO infrastructure configuring a multi-workstream project architecture with separate spaces for each institutional partner, cross-functional task delegation to internal Apple stakeholders (Legal, Finance, Curriculum, Recruiting), and a risk register with escalation workflows. I designed dependency mapping between workstreams so that scholarship disbursement tasks were gated behind curriculum agreement sign-offs, preventing premature commitment of funds and ensuring compliance across all 15 institutions simultaneously.

I developed a standardized onboarding playbook for new HBCU partners. This was a reusable, templated workflow in Wrike that reduced partner activation time by 40%. Each playbook included intake questionnaire logic, milestone-gated deliverable tracking, a communication cadence framework, and an escalation matrix for unresolved blockers. This was the operational backbone that allowed three complex global initiatives to launch simultaneously without resource conflicts.

Drawing on my Account Manager experience, I also consulted retail and B2B teams on how to better position Apple's enterprise ecosystem. Using Apple Business Manager, MDM deployment frameworks, and Apple Pay infrastructure within education sector accounts, creating a feedback loop between field sales insights and REJI's institutional engagement strategy.

The program infrastructure I built enabled Apple to execute one of the most ambitious corporate equity initiatives in tech history at scale, activating 15 HBCU institutions simultaneously with scholarships, exclusive engineering curriculum, and a direct pipeline to full-time Apple roles. The Wrike-based onboarding playbook I designed reduced partner activation time by 40% and became the repeatable framework for future institutional partnerships, allowing three complex global initiatives to launch concurrently without resource conflicts or compliance gaps.

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PNC Financial Services, headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA and one of the nation's largest financial institutions, was in the midst of a significant digital transformation investing heavily in Fintech modernization, mobile banking UX, and contactless payment infrastructure. PNC's Innovation Center, a 10,000 sq. ft. dedicated hub at the heart of its Pittsburgh campus, served as the physical nerve center for this work: housing war rooms, agile development spaces, usability testing labs with one-way glass and video observation equipment, and executive briefing facilities. The Center was also PNC's primary venue for talent discovery, connecting the organization with the next generation of technologists emerging from Pittsburgh's world-class university ecosystem, including Carnegie Mellon University.

As Innovation Lead, I served as the operational and strategic proxy for C-level and Senior leadership across the Innovation Center's full program portfolio. From managing the physical space and vendor relationships, to facilitating cross-functional product discovery sessions between technology teams and business executives, to building the talent pipeline that would bring top engineering and CS talent from CMU and neighboring institutions into PNC's workforce.

I managed the day-to-day operations of the Innovation Center overseeing facility budgets, vendor contract negotiations, AV and technology infrastructure, and space utilization planning across war rooms, agile pods, and executive briefing suites. I coordinated directly with PNC's Technology Line of Business teams on sprint planning sessions, product discovery workshops, and prototype review sessions held within the Center. While also serving as the connective tissue between engineering teams building the product, and the executives funding and approving it.

On the product side, I managed and executed a structured user research program recruiting and screening 100+ participants via G-Suite, designing test protocols for Fintech feature evaluation (mobile check deposit UX, contactless payment flows, digital onboarding), and running moderated usability sessions in the Center's observation lab. I synthesized qualitative and quantitative findings into actionable insight reports delivered directly to senior product and technology stakeholders, and informing feature prioritization decisions on products that millions of PNC customers use today.

As TechConnect Collegiate Chair, I built and led PNC's university talent pipeline strategy. This was done through establishing a structured recruiting presence at Carnegie Mellon University and peer institutions. I designed the engagement model: campus info sessions, Innovation Center tours for top candidates, and a structured internship-to-hire conversion framework. I partnered with PNC's HR and Technology leadership to align role requirements with emerging skill sets in fintech, data engineering, and software development.

I also produced PNC's Innovation Center events within the Innovation Center. This consisted of executing large-scale leadership summits, hackathons, workshops, and company-wide offsites using Cvent for end-to-end event logistics and Sprinklr for social amplification and community engagement. Events averaged 200+ attendees and served as key activation moments for both internal culture and external brand visibility in Pittsburgh's tech ecosystem.

My work at PNC's Innovation Center left a tangible mark on both the organization and the products millions of customers use today. By bridging the gap between technology teams and executive leadership, I ensured that product decisions were grounded in real user data — delivering insights from 100+ moderated research sessions directly into the hands of the people building PNC's digital future. Simultaneously, the talent pipeline I established through TechConnect brought a new generation of engineering talent from Carnegie Mellon and peer institutions into PNC, strengthening the organization's technical workforce for years beyond my tenure.