Human Leadership
The listening that makes someone feel truly heard, not just consulted. Many colleagues over the years have described my leadership in strikingly consistent terms.
BELONGING · PRODUCT · PEOPLE
Charles Taylor
The Most Human Person in the Room — and That's His Edge.
Charles creates belonging wherever he works. For nearly a decade at Microsoft, that's what the products were built on. Named inventor. Leadership Excellence Award winner. Someone who makes the people around him capable of their best work.
MY STORY
The Work That Moves Me Isn't the Product. It's the People.
Some people find their way to empathy. I was shaped into it. Growing up navigating an identity that didn't map neatly onto any single box taught me something that no classroom could: what it feels like to stand in a room and wonder if you truly belong there. That experience didn't make me cautious. It made me a better listener. It gave me a particular attentiveness to the people who go quiet when others don't notice, and a deep commitment to building spaces where people feel genuinely seen. That's been the throughline of everything I've done since.
"What really lights me up is helping people navigate complexity together."
That throughline runs directly into the question defining this moment. AI is reshaping everything, and most of the conversation is about the technology. I'm more interested in the human question underneath: how do we bring people through transformation without losing what makes them effective? That question runs through my work at Microsoft, through the Accident Prone Podcast I co-host with Whitney, my childhood best friend, and through every conversation I've had that actually mattered. My north star is simple: work that makes a meaningful difference in people's lives. Everything else is in service of that.
FEATURED
Featured in KIPP: Making Our Mark — a KIPP Foundation alumni series
RECOGNITION & REACH
Recognition & Reach
10+
Years in Product
Building at the intersection of technology and people since 2014
1B+
People Reached
Across Windows, developer tools, and more. Products used by more than a billion people.
US Patent
Named Inventor
Windows 11 Taskbar Overflow Panel — Microsoft, 2024
US 11880554B2
Award
Leadership Excellence
Microsoft Leadership Excellence Award, 2025
CAREER
The Journey
Senior Product Manager, Workforce Insights & AI
Microsoft
Eight years shaping how a billion people experience Windows. Now I'm channeling that same conviction into a new space: AI tools that help organizations navigate workforce transformation. The technology matters — but I'm here because I believe what actually transforms organizations is people. In a moment when every company is asking what AI means for their workforce, I want to be in the room making sure the tools we build reinforce that truth, not undermine it.
Senior Product Manager, Windows Shell & Customer Programs
Microsoft
Windows 11 launched and I was squarely in the middle of it. What followed has been the most prolific stretch of my career: programs built from scratch that are still running, a promotion to Senior, mentorship that I'm genuinely proud of, and work at the edge of where AI meets human experience.
Certificate in Software Product Management
University of Washington
Decided to invest in the craft. Three years into Microsoft, I wanted more than instinct. I wanted language for what I was already doing. The UW program gave me that rigor, and the outside perspective made me a sharper PM when I came back.
Product Manager II, Windows Shell
Microsoft
Took a risk on consumer and moved to Windows. It turned out to be exactly where I needed to be: notifications, the taskbar, things that lived on people's screens every day. This is where I found my PM groove, built the instincts that would define everything that followed, and started figuring out what it means to do this work at a genuinely human scale.
Product Manager, Azure DevOps
Microsoft
First PM role at Microsoft. The imposter syndrome was real, and enterprise developer tooling wasn't my natural habitat. I earned my footing one conversation at a time and left with foundations I didn't even know I needed.
Technical Lead, TDP
Liberty Mutual
Named technical lead for my project cohort. I was the one with the CS degree, which put me in that seat. What the role actually taught me was that I cared more about the problem than the code, and that I wanted to go somewhere whose mission matched that energy.
Business Analyst, TDP
Liberty Mutual
A multi-city rotation that shifted the question I was asking. I was technically capable, but kept gravitating toward the problem-framing: the user conversations, the "what does this actually solve?" Turns out being good at understanding people matters more than I realized.
B.A. Computer Science
Duke University
Minor in Visual & Media Studies. Certificate in Information Science & Information Studies. Dean's List with Distinction. Study abroad: Berlin (creative writing) & Sydney (biogeography). The trips that changed how I see the world.
Software Developer Intern
Liberty Mutual
Came in certain I'd be a great software developer. Wrote code, dug into backend systems work, and started noticing that what I loved most wasn't the code. It was figuring out what to build, and why.
CORE STRENGTHS
What I Do Best
Four things I bring to every room, whether that room is a product review, a team in crisis, or a stage.
Bridge Builder
The best ideas die in the gap between people who don't speak the same language. I've spent my career in that gap. Made it smaller.
Principled Conviction
When a room is moving toward something I know isn't right, I say so, not loudly but clearly. That steadiness is what makes trust possible.
Programs That Last
I don't build initiatives. I build operating rhythms, ones so embedded in how teams actually work that they outlast the person who created them.
WHAT OTHERS SAY
In Their Words
SPEAKING
Ideas Worth Saying Out Loud.
Microsoft featured me as a Windows 11 maker for the work I do around inclusivity — making sure the rooms where products get built reflect the full range of people who use them. I've carried that same energy to Product School, the Goldberg Scholars Foundation (invited back three years running), the KIPP Foundation, and Duke University. The thread across every engagement is the same: I show up with lived experience, not theory. These aren't talks I built from frameworks I read about. They're things I had to figure out the hard way, working at the intersection of technology, teams, and belonging for the better part of a decade. My goal on any stage is the same as my goal in any room: leave people with something they can actually use.
TOPIC 01
AI Won't Transform Your Org. Your People Will.
The race to adopt AI is real, but the tools are the easy part. The hard part is the people: their fears, their habits, their sense of identity in a changing organization. This talk gives leaders a framework for the human side of transformation.
Leadership · Product · Org Transformation
TOPIC 02
Your Background Is a Feature, Not a Bug
This talk starts with a personal story about what it feels like to walk into a room and wonder if you belong there. It ends with a challenge: the best technology gets built by people who bring more than technical skill, and the industry needs to act like it.
DEI · Early Career · HBCU & College Events
TOPIC 03
Vulnerability as a Strategy
The leaders who create the best work don't have all the answers. They build teams that feel safe enough to find them. This talk makes the case that psychological safety isn't soft culture work. It's the operating condition for everything else.
Leadership · Culture · Mental Health & Wellness
Spoken For
THE PODCAST
Real Stories. Real People. No Filter.
Accident Prone started with a simple belief: that there’s real beauty in imperfection — and that the stories we most need to hear are the ones people are least likely to tell. Co-created with Whitney Jenkins, the show is built around conversations you can't have in a LinkedIn post: raw, honest, specific. Everything I believe about great work lives here: that vulnerability isn't a liability — it's a foundation. That belonging doesn't happen by accident; it gets built, conversation by conversation.
Co-hosted with Whitney Jenkins
Listen to the PodcastSEASON 2 · EP 2
Accidents of Our Past
feat. Biridiana Rodriguez — Director of Quality & Accountability, Charter Schools Office, Philadelphia
A conversation about the moments that almost broke her — and the ones that quietly made her who she is.
ListenSEASON 2 · EP 4
Accidents of Our Past
feat. Bukky Adebayo — educator, advocate, and someone who refuses to let the hard chapters define the ending
An honest reckoning with identity, expectation, and what it means to find your own path through.
ListenSEASON 2 · FINALE
Ask an Expert
feat. Toni Purvis — career coach & etiquette expert
Career, presence, and the unwritten rules nobody teaches you, with someone who has spent years teaching exactly that.
ListenGET IN TOUCH
Let's Connect
Whether you're thinking about a speaking engagement, a collaboration, a product conversation, or just something that's been sitting in your head with no clear home. Reach out. I read every message and take them seriously. This is the start of something, not a form submission.
Got it.
I'll read this carefully and get back to you. Thanks for taking the time to reach out.
