A systems thinker and a natural facilitator, I design to solve problems, create common ground and make a positive impact on the world.
¡Hola! I’m Sylvia.
I’m a design leader helping organizations innovate, bring regenerative products and services to life and scale their impact.
Over the last decade, I co-founded and have managed SocioFabrica, an award-winning user experience design agency. I have led our cross-functional team to build innovative product experiences for NTT & IBM, redesigned the end-to-end product experience for Ruth Health to improve maternal health outcomes, and partnered with NOLABA in post-Katrina New Orleans to build trust and launch new services that catalyzed economic development.
After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), I worked at global consulting firms advising companies in creative strategy, experience design, branding and innovation for clients that include: PwC, Better Place, CPUC, (RED), PepsiCo, Target, Starbucks.
I’m curious, optimistic and action-biased.
Growing up in Puerto Rico shaped my purview of the world: the geographic constraints taught me to be resourceful, the ocean’s horizon instilled curiosity for what lies beyond, and the warmth of a close-knit community made me joyful and optimistic. These characteristics inform how I work:
when faced with challenges, I’m resourceful, nimble and biased towards action
when dealing with novel issues, I’m curious to learn from different perspectives and be inspired by them
my contagious joyfulness and optimism helps me bring others into a safe space of possibility and imagination
When not designing, I love to share my career journey with the hope of educating, inspiring and empowering underrepresented groups in design and tech.
Having worked with large companies and startups alike, I serve organizations by helping with:
Design Leadership, Management & Operations
Establish design process and streamline cross-department collaboration
Grow impact and agility of UX across organizations
Help structure the design organization, define roles and build capacity
Product Design
Facilitate design sprints with cross-functional teams and contribute to strategy, concept & product definition
Identify and materialize new market opportunities; have helped take products from 0 to 1 and through to successful exits
Design, manage build out and deliver functional experiences that increase engagement
Market-fit, Branding & Growth
Fine-tune market fit through brand positioning and content strategy
Create systems to scale vision from product to marketing
Develop processes and tools to enable quick experimentation and iteration
Regenerative Design
Leverage systems thinking to align multiple stakeholders and co-create new regenerative models for delivering products and services
Identify opportunities for innovation, implement equity-focused UX design practices that increase addressable market, and establish systems for improved resource use and waste reduction
Let’s collaborate! Drop me a line or connect with me via LinkedIn.
Startups I’ve worked with
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Official
Official, a web 3 product democratizing ownership, needed help taking their product from initial concept to a sound customer offering. Consulting as their Design Lead, I helped them further define the product, streamline the experience and designed tools for implementation and growth.
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Ruth Health
Access to quality maternal healthcare in the US is stratified by race, ethnicity and income. Ruth Health aims to solve for that by providing affordable Telehealth. I led a year long engagement at SocioFabrica helping fine-tune product-to-market fit, branding and the end-to-end product experience.
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Farm from a Box
Regenerative toolkit Farm from a Box was seeking to redesign their website to increase adoption and better communicate income opportunity of their solution. I led a year-long project at SocioFabrica fine-tuning market fit and redesigning their site which helped double purchase intent and earned a Shorty Award for Social Good.
Speaking & Media Appearances
3 Lessons from a Startup that went bust, Lightning Speaker at Y Combinator Startup School Climate Startups mentor event (preso here), at Circuit Launch 2022, Oakland, CA
Being Determined to Meet Net-Zero by 2030, Panelist, at Horasis Global Meeting 2022, Virtual
A Morning with the Best of the Badass Bosses, Co-organizer at She Runs It 2020, San Francisco, CA
Design’s Evolving Role in Business, Keynote speaker at Más Cartagena 2019, Cartagena, Colombia
Latinas Exitosas, Television interview at Univision’s Despierta Área de la Bahía 2019, San Jose, CA
Creating a Legacy of Giving, Panelist at Horasis Global Meeting 2019, Cascais, Portugal
Leveraging Your Personal Brand to Effectively Lead, Keynote speaker at the Stanford University’s Breakthrough Conference 2018, Palo Alto, CA
Key Elements to Start a Business: Vision, Talent & Energy Keynote speaker at Talent Land 2018, Guadalajara, Mexico
A Conversation with Latina Moms in Tech, Panelist at Univision Tech Center 2018, San Jose, CA, covered on the Your Technology segment of Univision News
Prototyping Leadership: A Workshop for Women in Design, Organizer & facilitator at SheLeads San Francisco Design Week 2017, Mozilla HQ, San Francisco, CA
The Path to Leadership: A Conversation with Jamie Myrold, Adobe’s VP Design, Organizer & moderator at SheLeads Women’s Day 2017, Adobe, San Francisco, CA
Design(ing) Women In Charge, Keynote speaker at America’s Summit, Women Entrepreneurs Day, Facebook hq 2016, Menlo Park, CA
Design Engineering: How Innovators Create Solutions, Panelist at Wonder Women Tech 2016, Long Beach, CA