Retail / Training Program
Building an empathy-driven innovation culture across Sam’s Club
Client: Sam’s Club
Role: Studio Director
Team: Senior Director of Research, Experience Strategist, Experience Designer
Company: Sam’s Club / Walmart
Clubhouse is Sam’s Club’s 37,000-square-foot innovation studio—a purposefully designed space where teams come together to think differently, build collaboratively, and shape the future of retail. It’s where strategy meets creativity, and where new ideas take root through human-centered design.
Since its opening in July 2024, I’ve led the design and delivery of Clubhouse’s enterprise learning ecosystem—planning content, managing cadence, and facilitating hands-on sessions that reached over 1,000 associates across Sam’s Club and Walmart.
What began as a focused pilot for product teams evolved into a company-wide movement to build creative confidence, collaboration, and empathy-driven problem solving. These sessions helped transform how teams approach challenges and co-create meaningful solutions for members and associates alike.
In a rapidly evolving retail environment, Sam’s Club needed to enable cross-functional innovation and member-first thinking at scale.
How might we empower teams to move from solution-first thinking to truly understanding the people they serve—and make that mindset part of the enterprise culture?
The Challenge
The Approach
We designed a multi-level learning journey that blended mindset, methods, and practice.
Each session was intentionally connected to business priorities and crafted to make empathy, experimentation, and collaboration tangible.
The program evolved from foundational workshops into a scalable learning ecosystem—one that could flex across functions, experience levels, and brands. Through iterative testing and participant feedback, we refined content and facilitation to meet teams where they were and build creative confidence over time.
I served as program architect, facilitator, and experience lead, shaping the entire learning journey:
Designed and delivered the core curriculum and activation framework across Sam’s Club and Walmart.
Partnered with internal researchers, designers, and product leaders to create specialized sessions and applied labs.
Managed logistics and cadence, and facilitated 50+ sessions for over 1,000 participants spanning design thinking, empathy, problem identification, prototyping, and AI fluency.
Learn the mindset. Practice the tools.
Foundational sessions introduced design thinking through hands-on learning—where curiosity begins and confidence grows.
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Principles of empathy, ideation, and prototyping; reframing problems and pitching ideas.
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Understanding emotional drivers of user needs through empathy mapping and storytelling.
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Learning to uncover the real problem behind the ask.
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Partnered with researchers to teach observational and interview-based methods.
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Encouraged rapid, low-fidelity testing to turn ideas into action.
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Hands-on empathy exercises exploring inclusive physical and digital experiences.
Senior Analyst
“It’s helpful to step outside my regular work and hear other perspectives… it sparks creativity.”
Product Manager II
“These sessions have given practical tools to cut through assumptions and focus on solving the right problems.”
Director, Product Manager
“The Problem Identification and Empathy sessions were incredibly insightful and directly applicable to my role. The GenAI exercises were the perfect finish, showing how AI can elevate creativity throughout the product lifecycle.”
Where learning becomes doing.
Creative labs designed to apply new skills to real-world challenges.
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Gamified AI workshop series, expanding hands-on fluency in AI as a co-creator.
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Collaborative ideation on complex enterprise problems, open to all associates, using design-thinking tools and GenAI prompts.
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Live conversations with members and associates to practice active listening and translate stories into insights.
Senior Manager, Real Estate Program Strategy
“The GenAI Genius Playground was a creative sandbox. Open, collaborative, and energizing. It pushed me to experiment freely and prototype new ideas, like an immersive VR experience for members to test products before purchase.”
Senior Manager, Associate Experience
“The GenAI session reminded me that we’re all learning together, some further along than others, but united by the same goal: staying curious and using AI as part of our everyday work.”
Outcomes
1,000+ total participants since August 2024
100+ repeat participants attending multiple sessions in 2025
Consistent enterprise demand, including onboarding integrations and cross-brand partnerships
Documented mindset shifts toward empathy, experimentation, and collaboration
Growing internal community applying design thinking beyond formal training