Danielle was a summer intern who worked with me in the Commercial Operations space at Cruise. Her project was to determine what the next generation of a product should be to enable less technical users to complete their tasks without having to rely on engineers. This project ended up being much larger and more complex than anticipated. Danielle demonstrated her leadership skills by stepping up to the challenge. She worked with senior stakeholders to rescope the project, discovered additional user roles that weren't anticipated, and found the right folks to ensure we are meeting all our user's needs. This resulted in product requirements to create a usable product. During this process she built great relationships with stakeholders.

I enjoyed working with Danielle. Especially because she always showed tenacity in problem solving. Even when challenges came up she continued to find solutions. Her positive attitude and great questions made all our interactions fun. Danielle will go on to do great things in her career, and I will be cheering her on.

— Melissa Ann Gallagher, Senior UX Researcher at Unity (former Senior UX Researcher at Cruise, worked together in the Commercial Operations team)

Danielle started her career off as a UX researcher based on her experience of working as a business development strategist at Sendbird. She played a key role in establishing the foundation of the UX research team as the first member. In the process of forming her team, she volunteered to directly explore and contact the managers of her team, helping Sendbird recruit outstanding managers. This allowed the research team to quickly define areas of research and contribute to the product.

One of her impressive projects was collaborating with the marketing team to gather a research panel for on-the-go UX research, which resulted in the recruitment of 68 participants in just a month.

In addition, with her unique friendliness and positive mindset, she also got along well with people from various departments in the company. Her personality contributed to the team and the company in developing a bright and positive culture.

— Forest Lee, Head of Design at Sendbird (reporting line to UX Manager, worked closely on building the research team)

I worked together with Danielle for nine months, right after I joined Sendbird. As a product manager in charge of 'developer experience,' I needed to gather all kinds of developer-related information. She researched passionately with me to find out how to approach enhancing developer experience in our products. She never complained about anything, even though I asked her to research unclear topics or areas. We deep-dived into the issue together and finally accomplished our first feature right on time.

I would not have been able to list the components of the invisible project without Danielle. I am definitely willing to work with her again. With her passion and great personality, she will be your best partner and colleague.

— Sienna Jang, Product Manager at Sendbird (worked together on revamping the website, including the Documentation page)

Danielle is a social, creative, and enthusiastic individual, who considers issues of her work thoughtfully and thoroughly. While working with her on our cross-functional customer journey map project, she showed her strong UX skills and communication skills to form a survey that was sent to the key stakeholders to find the call to action moments and activities in each customer journey map stage.

She would always be happy to take on responsibilities and help other peers regardless of the situation. Danielle is a very good co-worker, team member, and UX researcher. I'm looking forward to having opportunities to work with her again in the future.

— Eric Kim, Product Manager at Sendbird (worked together on ‘Customer Journey Map’ project)

I would like to point out three aspects I experienced working with Danielle; her organization skills, willingness to collaborate and share knowledge, and having empathy for customers.

As an Account Executive, Danielle always took her time to organize her work and preparation needed materials before sharing them with the team. Specifically, Danielle closed the deals and passed those closed deals to me with detailed context and in an efficient manner. She also proactively shared what she has observed and learned, not only in regards to the accounts but also with the company strategies and background. During client meetings, she showed her empathy for customers which has led to successful deal closures. Danielle has also been a caring friend to all of the revenue team which is not an easy role to play.

— Yaewon Kim, Account Manager at Sendbird (worked together in the revenue team)

I had the pleasure of working with Yelin as her team member, collaborating on revamping the UI/UX of the app Clubhouse.

Yelin is an insightful, dependable, and communicative problem solver who often provided direction and helped bring our team back on track when we were getting lost or overwhelmed. She frequently gave critical insight that shaped the way we approached the project and made it easier for us to implement solutions.

Yelin is a natural at distilling and organizing complex processes and qualitative data into something digestible for both stakeholders and users and was an invaluable member of our project. I have absolute confidence in her abilities and potential as a UX researcher and designer and believe she will be an incredibly valuable teammate to any future organization or project she joins.

— Sarang Yang, UX Analyst at Delos (worked on Clubhouse project together)

Danielle joined the Cruise UX Research team for an internship in the summer 2022. I was her research mentor while she focused on projects ranging from understanding and improving a tool for our commercial operations team to understanding what customers want from their pick-up and drop-off experiences. 

I observed that Danielle was proactive in bringing clarity to her research and excelled at communicating her findings. Even when projects were not clearly defined when she started, she was able to make progress and work with stakeholders to rethink the scope. Ultimately, she provided not only actionable feature-level insights but also helped her product teams more fully understand their customers and their needs. 

— Lisa Nash, Senior UX Researcher at Cruise

Danielle proficiently used her past experiences from business development to find things on her own that will benefit the UX team and Sendbird. Kicking off her journey as a UX researcher at Sendbird, she showed me her passion for research, modestly but seriously.

Danielle is very passionate about UX research and recognized for her skills. She can pave the way for that to happen, and she has the courage and determination to execute it. I have no doubt Danielle will be able to walk the roadmap she made with greatness.

— Edward Lim, UX Manager at Sendbird (reporting line as a UX Researcher, advised and assisted on areas of research and building the research process)

Danielle was a critical member of our early team and company formation. She was our first member post our first round of fundraising and helped us put together the APAC group, which covers ~40% of our global revenue base. She was also the first member to create a few new functions at the Go-to-Market organization.

I’ve really enjoyed being a part of Danielle’s team as she understands how things work in reality very well. At the end of the day, we are all people and we need to develop proper alignment at a personal level to really form a lasting team. Danielle was the catalyst and glue for us to stay together and that really helped us through the dark times.

Danielle is also very unique in the sense of B2B UX realm, because she began her part in business development, experiencing the difference of CX and UX when it comes to selling, getting sold vs actually using the product to get things done, which in the world of APIs is really difficult to measure without a client-facing experience.

— Yaekyum Lee, Head of CX at Sendbird (former Head of APAC Sales, reporting line as a Business Developer & Strategist, worked on global revenue expansion as a team)

I had the ultimate pleasure to work with Danielle when we were in the same team, and she was the business development representative for many of my deals. It was a joy to team up with her and close complex deals as she is meticulous, thorough, and empathetic to the customer’s needs.

Danielle has an innate ability to read the room and logically solve challenging problems with skill and a cheerful outlook. During our time working together, I was highly impressed with her leadership qualities and proactive approaches, which quickly resulted in many project successes. She is creative and kind. Not only was she a great colleague, but she also became one of my dearest friends along the way. I wish Danielle all the best in every endeavor she would pursue and hope we work together again.

— Nush Khan, Global Business Development Manager, at Hyperconnect (former Account Executive at Sendbird, worked together in the revenue team)

Working together on a Clubhouse user experience revamp project, Yelin's meticulousness and active participation helped a lot in cruising the project. During the project, she continued to take a good look at what parts were missed and how to proceed efficiently within a set time through business management.

She also worked hard to create greater synergy with the team members by actively communicating with them toward a common goal. It was great fun working with Yelin, I learned a lot from her while working together. I believe that if ever come to work together in a company, Yelin is a person with whom I believe I can grow together with.

— Sua Park, UI/UX Designer at SaraminHR (worked on Clubhouse project together)

I worked with Danielle in the User-Centered Design class. Despite a short period of cooperation, I was truly impressed by her ability and personality. We conducted research and design based on the problem we were expected to solve when Danielle always presented clear perspectives and displayed her professional competence of expression and paperwork.

From my point of view, she is an outstanding researcher, with rich experience, good judgment and real foresight. Going along with Danielle, I also appreciate her attitude toward life, which makes her sunny and easy-going. I love that she could always carefully and properly arrange her life. I hope I can work with Danielle in future classes and even after graduation.

— Joyce Yu, UX Designer studying Master’s in Human-Centered Design and Engineering at University of Washington (worked on User-Centered Design project together)