A design leader's real job isn't taste. It's translation.

When I moved into leadership I thought the job was taste: pick the best work, hold the bar, sign off. Taste is part of it. Most of the day is something quieter. It's translation.

Designers think in craft and intent. Executives think in outcomes and risk. Left alone, the two talk past each other and the work stalls in the gap. My job is to stand in that gap and carry meaning both directions: turn a business goal into a creative brief, and a creative decision into a business case.

A vision only counts when both sides can act on it.

The best thing I do most weeks isn't a design. It's a sentence that finally makes two rooms agree.