Why I Started The Strategy Sketchbook

Because designing the “what” is nothing without the “why”

A few months ago, I was in Leadership At Scale course taught where Rachel Kobetz, Chief Design Officer at PayPal, shared how she never considered herself a writer. She set a goal, took a course, and committed to writing every day. Now, she publishes one of my favorite Substacks, the kind I read and forward and reread again.

And something clicked.

I’ve built a career in design that doesn’t always leave behind a beautiful app or a perfectly crafted physical product. My work lives in whiteboards, service maps, stakeholder conversations, strategy decks, and customer journeys that might never be seen by the public but that shape everything.

There’s a lot of talk about “designing experiences.”
There’s not enough talk about what it takes to design strategy.

That’s why I started The Strategy Sketchbook.

It’s not just a newsletter. It’s a practice. A place to document the thinking that usually stays hidden in sketchbooks, meeting notes, or hallway chats with the few people who truly get it. It’s where I’ll share frameworks, reflections, and questions I’m sitting with as someone who lives in the middle of design, strategy, and organizational transformation.

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Strategy is still design, even if it doesn’t fit in a Figma file

I’ve always been drawn to the messy space between systems and people. I believe the best experiences come from seeing the full picture: the digital, the physical, and the human. And not just the part your team “owns,” but the part that surrounds it. The culture. The legacy systems. The quiet politics. The assumptions that go unquestioned for too long.

This kind of thinking isn’t always visible.
But it’s what shapes everything that is.

As a design strategist, we often often don’t get the spotlight. You’re not shipping a feature. You’re shaping the reason that feature exists. You’re aligning orgs, reframing briefs, making sense of complexity, and trying to leave just enough clarity behind that someone else can carry it forward.

And yet, I don’t see enough people talking about what this actually looks like.

How do we create buy-in when no one’s asking for design?
How do we stay inspired when our work feels... invisible?
How do we convince leaders that design in strategy and design strategy are both vital?

I don’t have all the answers. But I have a lot of sketches. And I want to share them.

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Who this is for

I hope this finds the people like me; designers who live in the gray space between teams, disciplines, and deliverables. Leaders who are trying to build design maturity with limited tools and too many meetings. VPs and strategists who are quietly trying to push things forward without burning out.

And maybe even people who still think design is just “making things pretty.”

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What to expect

Here’s what I’ll be sharing regularly:

• Sketches from my own experience leading service and CX strategy

• Micro-frameworks and toolkits you can actually use

• Reflections on the messy side of building alignment and trust

• The occasional “strategy therapy” session, lessons learned the hard way

This is a space for design leaders. But more than that, it’s a space for people who believe design thinking is not just a workshop, it’s a way of moving through complexity with clarity and care.

Thanks for being here.