About
I design complex products and lead UX teams.
I’m Pedro. I’ve spent more than 15 years at Microsoft designing products and leading UX teams. The work has reached a lot of people, but what I care about most is building strong teams and helping them do work they’re proud of.
My Story
I was born in Bogotá, Colombia. I love traveling, learning languages, and getting to know how people live in different parts of the world. I speak Spanish, English, Italian, and French, and I’m learning Portuguese now.
I studied Computer Science, but I was drawn to UX early. I took web design classes in high school, studied UX and worked on implementing web designs while in college, and started my career as a UX PM before moving into design. That technical background still helps me work through constraints with engineers instead of treating them as a handoff at the end.
At Microsoft, I’ve worked as an individual contributor and as a design leader across Windows, Azure, enterprise tools, and AI products. I still like getting close to the work: prototyping, asking detailed questions, and understanding how a system behaves. As a manager, my job is to give people clear context, help them grow, and make it easier for the team to do good work together.
Outside work, I surf, scuba dive, and run. I’m usually happiest near the water, even when that means wearing a very thick wetsuit in the Pacific Northwest.
I spend a lot of time at work coaching. I try to notice what someone is naturally good at, ask useful questions, and give them room to find an answer rather than prescribing one. That approach has helped people take on larger roles and has made the teams I lead less dependent on me.
Lately, much of my work has been about AI and trust. I’m interested in both sides of it: how design teams can use AI well, and how we design AI products that are clear about what they know, what they don’t know, and what people remain responsible for.
How I Lead
People → Product → Process
I start with the people doing the work. Give them context, make priorities clear, and remove the obstacles you can. Good products and useful processes tend to follow. Starting with process usually creates more process; starting with output alone eventually burns people out.
This is practical, not aspirational. It helped one of my teams raise its Thrive score by 25 points, eliminated attrition, and supported more than 20 hires. More importantly, people had clearer ownership and more confidence in one another.
Empowerment over control. Let people go deep on what matters. Build a culture where everyone owns the outcome.
Trust first
Hire great people, give them context and goals, then get out of their way.
Keep vision and execution together
A direction is only useful if the team can act on it. Delivery is only useful if it moves the right work forward.
Let people go deep
Mastery comes from sustained focus. Let people become experts, not generalists.
Beyond Design
When I’m not working, I’m probably surfing, diving, running, or planning a trip. I grew up much closer to the equator, so cold-water surfing in the Pacific Northwest was an adjustment. I keep doing it anyway.
Languages are another long-running project. I speak Spanish, English, Italian, and French, and I’m working on Portuguese. Learning a language is humbling in a useful way: you have to listen closely, make mistakes in public, and keep going.
Expertise
Leadership & Strategy
- • Organization transformation & culture building
- • Executive storytelling & vision setting
- • Inclusive hiring & mentorship (20+ diverse hires sustained)
- • Cross-functional alignment (design, eng, PM, data science)
UX & AI Expertise
- • AI safety & trust design (C2PA, content authenticity)
- • Complex workflow design (B2B, SaaS, developer tools)
- • Prototyping & interaction design paradigms
- • Design systems governance across ambiguous, high-impact environments
Technical Background
- • BS in Computer Science (Stevens Institute of Technology, 2008)
- • Expert in prototyping & technical communication with engineers
- • Deep understanding of ML/AI systems, IoT, cloud platforms
By The Numbers
18 Years
Leading design at enterprise scale
1.5B+
Windows devices reached worldwide
$10B+
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
30+
Designers & Researchers Led
Resume
Download my full resume for detailed work history, education, and skills.
Let's Talk
I'm open to leadership roles, consulting opportunities, and good conversations about AI, design, surfing, or how to help teams thrive with (and on) AI.