Nice words

From Marcelo Zerwes, who I managed at RMIT Online

I had the privilege of working with Milly and having her as a manager. She has a very powerful combination of skills that make her a great team member and leader.

Milly is very solutions and action focused in her work, but her approach to execution is always strategic, built on an admirable talent to read situations, people's behaviour and the contextual environment. And always with a relentless commitment to deliver a solution to the customer's problem - human-centred and agile at the same time (she's got all the buzzwords, but actually the real deal).

Milly's strength is not only practical. Her wealth of knowledge in all things design, product, agile and more is impressive, and is ever expanding, as she finds the time to consume huge amounts of articles, books, podcasts, films and documentaries. And she is always bringing those newly-found ideas and approaches to work and experimenting with them. Not only that, she has the generosity to share them widely and encourage others to try things themselves, so the people around her not only benefit from her growth, but grow with her as well. A true leader in that sense.

As a manager, Milly was amazing. She would enable me establish and achieve my goals, encourage me reach beyond them, and remove blockers as much as possible. She would help tie my work with what others were doing and what the customers needed most. All that without micro-managing, and while being a good listener.

I have fond memories of working with her on problems and brainstorming ideas - before we knew she had already paved the way to reach the solution, be it coming up with a plan on the spot to test the idea with users, creating kanban boards that made sense of what we spoke of and pointed to an outcome, or immediately finding an existing solution somewhere. It was fulfilling and enjoyable, because we progressed so fast and in the right direction.

I miss those days and would love to one day collaborate with her again. In the meantime, I'm very grateful for all that I learned from her.

From Michele Ronsen, who I worked with at UsabilityHub (as a partnership with CuriosityTank)

Milly and I began working together on the UX Lexicon in the summer of 2019. She was an outstanding contributor! We also collaborated while she was at UsabilityHub. We created a powerful partnership when Milly and UH sponsored 12 "Ask Like A Pro" projects, over two cohorts, for my students to work on real-life UXR projects.

Milly is not only an excellent collaborator and partner, she is also a supremely gifted mentor, an expert in product management, and user research. We've discussed several potential future collaborations and I am tickled pink to partner with Milly again. I adore Milly. I trust her implicitly. And I admire the way she thinks, approaches people, and problems. She is also unflappable.

From Laura Summers, who I worked alongside at Clover

Milly has one of the most genuinely curious minds I've ever met. She sincerely loves change - whether it's new platforms, methodologies, or programming languages. Her enthusiasm to explore, to iterate and to improve is infectious. And she applies that inquisitiveness to the areas which need it most: usually your customers and your business model.

Given the obvious womance going on, we picked up a work-couple moniker while at Clover: "Lilly" (Laura + Milly). Even more OTT adorable is this amazing hashtag that Milly coined: #friendsdontletfriendsdesignalone (It's true. Don't design alone. You'll make mistakes.)

Milly brings a wide breadth of knowledge paired with a pragmatic problem solving approach. Collaborating with her is a real treat, whether it is on research design, user experience design, interface design, or code design. Her generous approach to knowledge sharing, excellent code reviews and willingness to break things down to their fundamentals will be an asset to any team lucky enough to have her.

She's an admirable coder and a self-driven learner: and it is that trait of curiosity which has led her beyond the standard web technologies into Functional Programming, and beyond programming to UXR and UXD. Milly proselytizes for Design Thinking and other methodologies which help tech teams do better work: but what she champions, above and beyond any specific tool, or process, is clear thinking and careful consideration.

Working alongside Milly has been, without a doubt, one of the highlights of my career so far. She's just one of those rad people who makes you, your team and your product better in every way. Also, she'll get you saying 'rad' before you know it.

From Emily Doyle, who I worked with at Godel

Amelia is a great addition to any team who cares about quality, collaboration and innovation. She brings to her work a passion for well-formed, elegant code, and is always open to both sharing her expertise with her team members and seeking ideas from colleagues on how to find the best solution for a problem.

Amelia naturally gravitates to leadership roles, speaking up where she sees room for improvement and contributing to forming processes to ensure everyone can work better. Her sense of responsibility and dedication to follow through is a valuable asset to any team she's a part of.

In addition to the above, her technical skills are superb, and her passion for continuous learning will ensure they remain so well into her career. She can always be trusted to deliver on time and is the ultimate "team player"; with Amelia on your project team success is pretty much guaranteed.