Letter from a leader

Hello,

I’ve spent much of my career helping people make sense of complicated work. The part I value most is helping a team find its footing, understand what each person brings, and do work they can feel proud of.

I’m a mentor by nature. I like sharing what I’ve learned, including the things I had to learn the hard way. But I don’t believe experience means I have every answer. I listen. I ask questions. I know I can learn something from anyone on the team.

People do better work when they know they matter. I take time to understand their strengths, what they enjoy, and where they want to grow. That helps me put the right people in the right places. It also helps them see a future for themselves, beyond the next assignment.

At Citi, my producer was a close partner. We would sit down with an intake and work through the request: what we were being asked to do, how big the work was, who needed to be involved, and how we should shape the team. We each brought a different view, and we worked through the hard parts together.

After kickoff, I often held what I called a “Buy, By, Bye” meeting. It was a simple way to remind us that people can hear the same thing and understand it differently. We would compare what we thought the request meant, sketch if that helped, and gather our questions before going back to our partners. I wanted us to start from a shared understanding.

I also wanted knowledge to be shared. We usually paired a primary designer with someone who could back them up. We worked together on architecture and wireframes, and brought in the people who understood the business, the technology, or a particular part of the design. A strong team knows when to ask for another perspective.

When something went wrong, my producer and I would work out a path forward and bring in others when we needed them. We rarely needed upper management to step in and settle a partnership issue. That came from trust, honest conversations, and staying close to the work.

Some of my proudest moments had little to do with a screen. I brought an invention idea to the team so everyone could help develop it. It became a patent, and people who had never been through that process became inventors. I also helped someone I hired on her path to citizenship. Those experiences stay with me because they changed what people could see for themselves.

Over time, our group became known as “The Dream Team.” To me, that name reflected years of people showing up for each other and delivering consistently. It was something we built together.

The largest team I directly managed was eight people. As a team grows, I believe the same care can carry through leaders who know their people and can speak to their strengths. My job is to give those leaders direction, support, and clear standards, then make sure they have room to lead.

That’s what you can expect from me: someone who cares about the people, takes the work seriously, and is willing to keep learning alongside you.

Kirk Lewis II