0→1 Business Intelligence
Led design for a 0→1 business intelligence platform that unified fragmented student data across enrollment, retention, placement, and compliance—helping career schools identify risk earlier and act faster.
Role
Senior Product Designer & Design Manager
Team
3 Product Managers · 3 Product Designers · 16 Engineers
Opportunity
CourseKey needed to become more than another point solution
The business problem
CourseKey had secured Series B funding on the strength of its attendance and academic-tracking products, but those point solutions alone weren’t enough to significantly expand the client base or become an essential part of a school’s technology stack.
The customer problem
Career schools relied on separate systems for attendance, grades, enrollment, placement, and compliance. No single product gave staff a complete view of student performance, forcing them to manually piece together data before they could identify problems or act.
Product opportunity
Aggregate data from the systems schools already used, surface the most important insights, and make CourseKey the primary place staff went to understand and improve student outcomes.
My Role
Led product design while building and managing the design team
Product Strategy
Defined core product concepts, redesigned the information architecture, and created the Workspace model.
Design & Execution
Led interaction design and prototyping while evolving the design system for data-heavy workflows.
Design Leadership
Managed two product designers, scoped and assigned work, and provided direction, feedback, and mentorship.
Research
Fragmented data kept schools reacting instead of intervening early
I interviewed executives, campus presidents, program directors, advisors, and instructors across 12 schools to understand which data mattered most, where visibility broke down, and what actions staff needed to take from those insights.
Fred C., Admissions Officer | Milan Institute
Fred C., Admissions Officer | Milan Institute
John C., CCO | Concorde College
Shari G., Registrar | Central Coast College
Key takeaway: Schools didn’t need more data—they needed one place to connect it, understand what required attention, and act earlier.
Strategy
Unify the student lifecycle in one premium intelligence platform
The CEO, VP of Product, and I defined Cortex around three capabilities: integrate the systems schools already relied on, surface the insights that required attention, and proactively notify the right people when action was needed.
Information Architecture
The existing product structure couldn’t support an analytics platform
Cortex introduced entirely new data-heavy workflows, so I redesigned the site map and navigation model to make analytics a first-class part of the product while also simplifying existing flows users struggled to navigate.
Product Site Map Updates (2022)
Product Model
Organize intelligence around how schools already managed the student lifecycle
Schools naturally organized operations around Enrollment, Retention, Placement, and Compliance. I created the Cortex Workspace model around those same stages, giving each area a dedicated place for insights, monitoring, and automated actions.
Core Product Updates
Data-heavy workflows required a denser visual system
The original CourseKey system was optimized for simple attendance workflows, with large components, generous spacing, and limited data visualization. Cortex required greater information density, so I refined typography, spacing, containers, and color while adding patterns for tables, charts, and analytics.
Support more data without sacrificing hierarchy or usability
I refined typography, spacing, containers, and data-visualization patterns to support denser analytics while keeping the interface clear and scannable.
Turn fragmented student signals into an actionable risk view
The redesigned student page brought retention risk, performance trends, program progress, and activity history into one view so staff could understand why a student might be struggling and intervene earlier.
The Final Experience
One intelligence layer across enrollment, retention, placement, and compliance
Enrollment: Identify early attendance issues, monitor status conversion, and automate outreach.
Retention: Surface at-risk students, understand contributing signals, and intervene before students disengage.
Placement: Track job outcomes and compare performance across programs and campuses.
Compliance: Monitor graduation and placement thresholds in real time and alert staff before accreditation metrics fall below target.
Impact
Prototypes sold Cortex before we finished building it
Sales used my Cortex prototypes to validate the product before launch, securing eight pre-sale agreements worth $1.5M. Within roughly a year of launch, company revenue grew from $3M to $5.5M, alongside three Series C funding offers and the company’s eventual acquisition.
$1.5M
Pre-sale revenue secured before launch
Across eight school agreements
83%
Revenue growth within ~1 year
From $3M to $5.5M
8
Schools signed before launch
Based on sales demos using Cortex prototypes
Leadership Growth
The project expanded my scope from product design to design leadership
Alongside leading Cortex design, I managed two product designers and partnered directly with the executive team across multiple initiatives. The experience strengthened how I advocated for team needs, delegated work, gave feedback, and created the structure designers needed to operate independently.