Welcome to Leading by Design!

But before we dive in …

^{Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Beehiiv} 

Introducing Julie Baher

The Executive Who Champions Passion as a Strategic Asset

Today I want to introduce you to someone who has built a remarkable career on the principle that passion is a strategic asset. Julie Baher is a Digital Health Executive and veteran of the UX community. Her journey from designer to executive illustrates how connecting your authentic self to your professional pursuits isn't just about job satisfaction, it's about achieving maximum impact and earning a real voice at the strategic table. To understand her perspective, you need to know a bit about her background

That connection to medicine and science, seamlessly woven together with her technical and design skills, became the powerful strategic foundation for her ultimate executive role. Julie has written about this in her LinkedIn article, Finding Your Passion at Work and in an interview in my book Leading by Design. Let’s dive into her insights.

The Foundation: Combining Disparate Interests

Julie's career was built on a series of purposeful convergences. The first lesson for design leaders is to stop viewing your skills as linear. Julie’s journey into User Experience (UX) was fueled by a lifelong fascination with combining seemingly disparate fields. She realized her passion lay in the “intersection of art and problem-solving,” specifically, the desire to combine her “love of math and creativity.”

This fascination quickly translated into a professional philosophy: “Once I discovered graphic design, I thought, 'Why isn't this taught in schools?' It's applied art, not fine art. You're not trying to be a Rembrandt but creating practical, useful things. And I'm a practical person.”

This insight, that design is fundamentally about creating practical, functional solutions is the core value that anchored her career. It allowed her to focus on its problem-solving application.

The Strategic Act of Value Alignment

Julie emphasizes the importance of "finding companies where her values align with the organization's mission." She has consistently selected organizations—from Adobe to Citrix to Myriad and now GeneDx, where she could genuinely connect her interests to the mission:

• Helping Creatives: At Adobe, she connected with her love of darkroom photography and desktop publishing to help creative professionals.

• Supporting IT: At Citrix, her background in building computers and IT allowed her to connect with IT customers.

• Improving Human Health: This is where the long-shelved passion for science finally became central. At Illumina, Myriad and now GeneDx she could integrate her biology background, interest in medicine, and software design skills to help scientists, doctors, and patients through genetic insights.

This deep alignment is what enabled her to “excel as an executive leader.” She isn’t just performing a job; she is fulfilling a deeply personal mission.

For design leaders, the transition to the executive level often means a battle for respect and recognition. Julie notes the common pitfall in some tech environments: UX is often marginalized, brought in late, and viewed as providing mere “window dressing”. However, her value-aligned career in the life sciences provided the perfect counter-narrative, proving that passion directly leads to influence.

The 'Big Tent' Advantage

In tech, the product story often revolves around an engineer and a product manager. Julie found that the life sciences industry naturally operates with a “big tent” approach.

This environment, where her passion for science gave her instant credibility, allowed her to achieve her ultimate goal: positioning herself as a valuable strategic contributor. She realized that to fully embody the role of a Vice President, she needed to shift her mindset “away from simply being the UX leader” and toward broader strategy. Her foundational passion gave her the conviction to “be more assertive about my role” and avoid being undervalued.

Systemic Problem-Solving

Her deep interest in understanding the system is another critical facet of her passion. As a child, she loved Richard Scarry’s book, What Do People Do All Day? This childhood curiosity grew into a professional strength: "I like knowing how things work and seeing the systems at play." And this this translated into a unique ability to tackle enormous, complex scopes. For example as VP Digital Health for Product Management and User Experience Design for Myriad:

• Integrated Leadership: She led the product management team in addition to UX. This dual role gave her the necessary “authority to comment on development work and other areas” and ensure UX is involved in the entire product stack, aligning design priorities with the overall business vision.

• Design Thinking for Systems: Her team used visual mapping, workflow analysis, and journey mapping to understand the entire “Jenga tower” of the ecosystem—including customer service, billing, and medical professionals—before making changes.

The Takeaway

Julie Baher's journey powerfully illustrates this truth: Passion is not a luxury in executive leadership; it is your core strategic asset.

Think about it: genuine enthusiasm provides the kind of clarity and conviction that mere experience cannot.

• It gives you the clarity to choose the right companies—those missions and cultures that deeply resonate with your purpose.

• It builds the credibility necessary to be a truly strategic contributor, allowing you to speak with authority that transcends departmental silos.

• Most importantly, it arms you with the conviction needed to assert the value of design against entrenched organizational practices and short-sighted thinking.

Your Multifaceted Advantage

Your unique combination of interests whether you blend graphic design and mathematics, or biology and software engineering is not a distraction to be minimized. It is the strategic narrative that will define your executive success. It's the unique lens through which you see problems and solutions that no one else can match.

Don't settle for environments that merely tolerate your skills. Seek the organizations that actively reward your multifaceted interests and allow you to align your deepest personal values with their mission.

When you embrace this intersection of passion and skill you move beyond being a highly effective team leader to becoming a visionary strategic executive who truly shapes the future of the business.

What Drives You?

What is the unique, driving passion, the combination of skills and interests that motivates you to do the work you do today, and how are you leveraging it to move your company's mission forward?

The full interview with Julie Baher, along with insights from many other design and tech executives, is available in the book, Leading by Design: The Insider's Handbook for Tech Leadership, on Amazon.

That's it for this week!

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© 2026 Sally Grisedale, Clear Channel Coaching.