Jun 2021 – Dec 2022 · 1 yr 6 mos · Madison, WI · Remote

• Corporate Accessibility Strategy: Lead accessibility initiatives for Microsoft’s Cloud & AI division within a hub-and-spoke corporate accessibility model. Ensure division-wide alignment with corporate accessibility standards, policies, and goals.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Identify systemic accessibility gaps and drive remediation across multiple product teams (e.g. Power BI, Power Apps, Dynamics). Collaborate with engineering, design, and program management to integrate accessible solutions into product lifecycle.
• Program Development: Coordinate with the central accessibility team to implement company-wide programs – including staff training, product accessibility evaluations, and adoption of corporate accessibility technical solutions – across the division.
• Operational Enablement: Established processes for cross-team communication and dependency management, unblocking issues between product groups to accelerate the resolution of accessibility problems.
• Subject Matter Expertise: Serve as a company-wide accessibility expert and advisor on strategy, guiding senior leadership and product executives on inclusive design best practices and compliance.

Jul 2018 – Jun 2021 · 2 yrs 11 mos · Madison, WI · Remote

• Enterprise Disability Support: Acted as an accessibility escalation lead for Microsoft’s enterprise Disability Answer Desk, supporting corporate, education, NGO, and government customers. Resolved thousands of accessibility issues, ensuring customer success and retention.
• Influencing Product Improvement: Liaised between customers and over 100 product engineering teams to communicate critical accessibility bugs and customer pain points. Influenced the prioritization and fixing of accessibility issues across a wide range of Microsoft products.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Handled numerous high-profile escalations to successful resolution, earning trust from key customers. Delivered accessibility training and webinars (including a widely attended Microsoft Teams screen reader webinar) to educate both customers and internal stakeholders, thereby enhancing the adoption of accessible features.

Mar 2016 – Mar 2017 · 1 yr · Redmond, WA

• Product Accessibility Leadership: Drove major improvements to Windows 10’s built-in screen reader, Narrator. Designed and delivered new features (enhanced web page support, revamped command structure, improved app interactions) to significantly advance Narrator’s usability and competitiveness for blind and low-vision users.
• Strategic Evaluation: Created a competitive scorecard benchmarking Narrator’s capabilities against other industry screen readers. Used this analysis to influence the Windows accessibility product roadmap and secure executive support for further accessibility investments.
• Organization-Wide Training & Engagement: Championed accessibility across the Windows division by developing and presenting division-wide accessibility training. Established a Windows Accessibility Advisory Board to engage key external accessibility experts and gather feedback, integrating community insights into Microsoft’s development process.
• Feedback Integration: Oversaw both internal and external user feedback channels for Windows accessibility. Managed a team of vendor specialists to conduct usability testing and gather user feedback, ensuring continuous accessibility improvements throughout the product development lifecycle.
• Cross-Team Advising: Served as an accessibility subject matter expert to core platform teams (e.g. XAML UI framework team), embedding accessibility considerations into the software development lifecycle and empowering engineering teams to build more inclusive features from the ground up.

Dec 2012 – Mar 2016 · 3 yrs 3 mos · Redmond, WA

• Founding Accessibility Support Services: Built Microsoft’s Disability Answer Desk (DAD) and enterprise Disability Answer Desk (eDAD) from the ground up to provide dedicated support for customers with disabilities. Recruited, hired, and managed a team of full-time support engineers and trained over 80 vendor support agents across global call centers, establishing a reliable service for accessibility-related customer inquiries.
• Executive Engagement: Advocated accessibility initiatives at the highest levels of the company by Briefing Microsoft’s CEO and Senior Leadership Team on accessibility progress, challenges, and customer stories. Presented demonstrations and competitive analyses of Microsoft’s accessibility features versus industry peers, influencing executive decision-making and securing continued commitment to accessibility goals.
• Cross-Functional Program Leadership: Led a virtual taskforce of 100+ members across Microsoft’s Sales, Marketing, Services, and marketing groups to achieve compliance with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). Drove coordination among all stakeholders to meet aggressive regulatory deadlines for accessibility on customer-facing websites and services.
• Enterprise-Wide Accessibility Compliance: Implemented accessibility improvements across 50+ web properties (including high-traffic sites like support.microsoft.com), ensuring all CVAA requirements were met on time and within budget. Oversaw usability testing with external vendors and verified that new designs for web, chat, forums, and multimedia players were accessible and user-friendly.
• Policy and Training Development: Developed and delivered comprehensive accessibility training programs for designers, developers, program managers, and testers, scaling knowledge and skills needed for ongoing compliance and innovation in accessibility.

Sep 2009 – Dec 2012 · 3 yrs 3 mos · Redmond, WA

• Team Leadership & Lab Management: Managed a team of five engineers and a $500K annual lab budget to improve the performance testing infrastructure for Internet Explorer. Transformed a low-volume, unreliable lab into an industry-leading, high-capacity performance measurement environment trusted by multiple product teams (IE, Windows, Bing, etc.).
• Innovation & Cross-Team Impact: Introduced innovative testing methodologies (such as machine pooling of test hardware) that significantly increased testing efficiency and eliminated redundant resources. The improved lab and processes were adopted by various teams and external partners, boosting performance optimization efforts across Microsoft’s product ecosystem.

Jan 2008 – Dec 2014 · 6 yrs 11 mos · Redmond, WA

• •Standards Development: Led an international working group under the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) focused on developing the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG 2.0). Facilitated collaboration among industry, academia, and disability advocacy representatives to shape global standards for web browser and media player accessibility. Provided strategic direction, edited specifications, and built consensus to advance accessibility guidelines that influence modern web technologies.

Jan 2004 – Sep 2009 · 5 yrs 8 mos · Redmond, WA

• Quality Assurance Leadership: Led a team of 5–8 full-time testers (plus contractors) for Internet Explorer 7 and 8, focusing on user interface and experience features such as tabbed browsing, security/privacy settings, search and address bar functionality, and browser accessibility.
• Test Process Improvement: Overhauled and modernized the test automation framework (rewriting over 4,000 test cases) to accommodate new features like tabbed browsing. Drove the team to achieve 100% reliability in automated test runs by the end of the product cycle, significantly improving product quality and efficiency.
• Knowledge Sharing: Created and ran “IE Test Boot Camp,” a week-long training program for new team members, and organized an ongoing “IE College” training series covering advanced testing techniques. This fostered an engaged, skilled testing community within the Internet Explorer team.

Dec 2000 – Dec 2003 · 3 yrs · Redmond, WA

• Feature Ownership: Owned testing for various Internet Explorer features (e.g. Manage Add-ons, History, Save As, AutoComplete), ensuring high quality releases during Windows XP Service Pack 2 development. Developed extensive automated test suites for new features and coordinated a team of six contractors in daily build verification, improving test coverage and product stability.
• Accessibility Champion: Served as the accessibility test lead for MSN Explorer versions 7 and 8. Drove accessibility considerations within the product team and worked closely with third-party assistive technology vendors to ensure compatibility of MSN Explorer with screen readers and other assistive tools. This effort helped embed accessibility into the product’s design and testing processes.

Jul 1995 – Dec 2000 · 5 yrs 5 mos · Gresham, OR · On-site

• Campus Accessibility Services: Established and led the college’s assistive technology program to support students with disabilities. Assessed individual student needs and provided training on a wide range of assistive technologies, including screen readers (JAWS), screen magnifiers (ZoomText), speech recognition software (Dragon NaturallySpeaking), and other adaptive hardware.
• Accessible Materials Production: Developed a process to convert printed materials into accessible digital text and Braille formats. Supervised a team of student employees in producing Braille textbooks and electronic course materials, significantly improving access to educational content for blind and low-vision students.
• Policy and Compliance Advocacy: Collaborated with campus web developers and IT committees to ensure the college’s websites and online course materials met accessibility standards (such as W3C WCAG 1.0 and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act). Advocated for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 in technology decisions, influencing campus-wide policies to be more inclusive.
• Community Engagement: Partnered with local organizations and disability services groups to raise awareness of accessibility issues. Led workshops and training sessions for faculty and staff on disability accommodation and the effective use of assistive technology, building a more inclusive campus culture.

Dec 1989 – Jul 1994 · 4 yrs 7 mos · Madison, WI · On-site

• National AT Database Project: Coordinated a federally funded project (Tech Act) to create a distributed database of assistive technology service providers across the United States. Managed data collection and updates provided by state agencies, and organized annual multi-day training conferences for approximately 50 state representatives to improve program implementation and gather requirements for future development.
• Assistive Technology Research & Publications: Researched and documented hundreds of assistive technology products for inclusion in Trace Center publications (such as the Trace Resourcebook and QuickSheets) and external databases like ABLEDATA. Authored clear, detailed product descriptions that helped consumers and professionals understand available accessibility tools.
• Information & Support Services: Streamlined a national assistive technology information clearinghouse, handling several hundred inquiries per month. Transitioned the system from paper-based logs to a computerized database-driven system to improve efficiency and response times. Provided technical support for early accessibility software utilities (e.g. AccessDOS and the Access Pack for Windows—precursors to today’s built-in accessibility features like StickyKeys and MouseKeys), and represented the Trace Center at major accessibility conferences (CSUN, RESNA) through presentations and exhibits to disseminate research findings.