top of page
Gabrielle Penaluna
Creative Director | Product Designer
Gabrielle is consistently responsive, open to ambiguity with projects and willing to try design options. Her experience and talent make it so that she can deliver no matter the hurdles-- lack of time, changing feedback, ambiguous direction. This flexibility and nimble design thinking makes her of tremendous value. She works independently and is a resource for other designers and x-functional stakeholders. She has consistently delivered for Apple since 2019 -- often with long nights and weekend work. She is unflaggingly invested in her work and her teams. She is a total pro.
2021 EOY Performance Review
In late 2021, Gabrielle was selected to be a Design Lead/ Art director on the Marketing track. This is a level above her current role and taps into her creative leadership skills. She is overseeing the work of a team of 2 designers. She is presenting as an ACD for Brand reviews and other large stakeholder meetings. She is de facto peer to the full-time ACD on BuyFlow. This elevation in role is in recognition of her creative leadership potential. This is meaningful and a testament to her design talent and the creative leadership abilities she's been cultivating through her volunteer mentorships. The opportunity to mentor and guide other creatives has been a long standing goal for G and feeds her personally. I look forward to hearing about the impact she has on her teams, their work and the overall business.
2021 EOY Performance Review
During this cycle Gabrielle was assigned and owned the AOS MOW designs for multiple payment options as part of an incredibly large design delivery for Get Ready. She delivered her consistently good work on time (working late when needed) within a very constrained timeline and without complaint or excuse. She was very collaborative, patient, reliable and a good communicator. G also proactively recommended a universal design update to the Apple flows to make them more legible, better looking and more user-friendly. The team accepted these updated and implemented across all designs. She is eager to improve design layouts and has offered ideas to increase the readability of review screens. She is hardworking, easy going and capable of looking holistically at the work.
2020 EOY Performance Review
G's Apple stakeholders would encourage her to take more leadership on projects. They see hints of her leadership and would encourage her to showcase this more. Gabrielle is also looking for opportunities to showcase her leadership. She'd like to have more strategic and conceptual work as well as an opportunity to mentor and lead creative teams. The constraints of a retained employee model, plus the rather rigid roles of the Apple team make it difficult to grow outside the defined role. but G has found ways to demonstrate this capacity with her work with a young designer in Built for Girls. She has been mentoring a young woman and just oversaw the launch of her first website. She is also interested (as evidenced by her goals) in taking advantage of LinkedIn learning to explore other venues to stretch. She is also advocating for this desire for "more" with her Apple stakeholders to ensure they understand her goals and can advocate for her appropriately.
2020 EOY Performance Review
bottom of page