Nelly was born and raised in Los Angeles, but her baseball-shaped heart has always belonged to the San Francisco Giants, as her Brooklyn born father goes back to New York with the Giants. She has impressed her co-workers with stories of family friend Charles Bukowski reading to her when she was a kid (let that scene sink in).

These days, Nelly is a super-connector: She loves bringing people together and building communities through design. In her former role as Head of Events for Adaptive Path and Capital One, she played a key role in producing some of the design industry’s most popular conferences. Since her time with Capital One Nelly has completed her design strategy MBA (DMBA) with California College of the Arts, where she served as head of events for the DMBA, co-creating and launching their community brand and inaugural event. Most recently, as Sr. Design Ops Program Manager at Uber, Nelly led design education initiatives, expanding programs and partnering with General Assembly to launch the Uber Design Pathways apprenticeship program, resulting in successful transitions for apprentices into full-time roles at Uber.

In her next chapter, Nelly strives to elevate experiences for all types of communities to create the design conversations of our future.