EmilyWatson Purewal

I create the conditions where designers do their best work, building the cross-functional alignment, psychological safety, and operational clarity that let teams move fast without losing quality, trust, or each other.

10 yrs / Microsoft
0 → 1 → scale

Selected Work

[ 03 ]

Microsoft · M365

SharePoint

I lead design for SharePoint Discover, company portals, and News, including the redesign of SharePoint Home as part of a broader shift toward more intelligent, personalized intranet experiences. My work focuses on consumption, helping people get back to their sites and working set quickly, understand what matters, and take action with less effort.

Across these experiences, I focus on bringing real value, utility, and moments of delight to everyday employee workflows, while thoughtfully integrating AI through Copilot and agents. I also partner closely across design, product, and engineering, shaping problem framing, UX strategy, and execution during a period of rapid platform transformation.

I build cross-geo programs, async workshops, and weekly huddles that keep our distributed design team connected, aligned, and moving together across time zones.

/: 1B+ people reached
/: Grounds M365 Copilot
/: Core intranet experiences

Microsoft · Viva

Viva Answers

I led design for Viva Answers, shaping a more trusted knowledge-sharing experience for enterprise communities. Through Community Experts, Verified Answers, and early AI-assisted answering, we created ways for subject matter experts to be recognized, validate knowledge, and help people get credible answers faster. Alongside the product work, I rebuilt the team’s operating rhythm from the ground up, introducing inclusive planning, structured critique, and psychological safety practices that transformed a struggling team into one that shares openly, gives honest feedback, and ships with confidence.

/: Enterprise-scale communities
/: Org-wide knowledge sharing
/: Expert recognition & trusted answers

Microsoft · M365

Frontline

I led design for Microsoft 365 Frontline, growing the product from early customer roundtables into a suite of Teams-based apps for deskless workers. As both an individual contributor and later a design leader, I drove experiences across Shifts, Tasks, Walkie Talkie, and Viva Connections, translating frontline needs into mobile-first workflows for scheduling, communication, and task coordination. This work expanded Microsoft 365 into a new audience, bringing practical, in-the-flow tools to workers who had historically been underserved by enterprise software.

/: Built for frontline workers
/: Mobile-first workflows in Teams
/: Designed for deskless work

How I Program Manage

[ 04 ]

I create clarity, momentum, and trust so teams can do their best work.

Cross-functional fluency

I speak Design, PM, and Engineering, and I know when to bring in Content and Research. I don’t just coordinate across disciplines; I build the shared language and working rhythms that support genuine collaboration.

Inclusive planning

I ensure design is involved from the beginning and design cross-functional planning processes that create clarity on strategy, bandwidth, and goals. The work moves faster when everyone understands where they’re going and how to get there.

No one-size-fits-all

Every team is different. I listen first, learning how the team works, where they get stuck, and what they actually need. Then I shape process around that reality without forcing a system that doesn’t fit.

Psychological safety

Healthy teams take risks. I create environments where sharing early, giving honest feedback, and learning from failure feel natural, not performative.

Right-sized process

Just enough structure to create clarity, never so much that it slows momentum. Process should support the work, not get in the way of it.

Creative protection

I’ve been an individual contributor, so I know what it takes to do great work. I protect the space for designers to explore ideas when it matters, and help them refine those ideas into strong proposals that support the business and user.

What About AI

[ 05 ]

I integrate AI into both how we design and what we ship.

How we work

My team uses Copilot and AI tools to accelerate discovery, research, and problem framing, moving faster through early-stage thinking. We use Cowork to reduce coordination overhead through summarization and feedback tracking.

How we prototype

For prototyping we lean on Claude Code, GitHub CLI, and Figma Make, and we’ve built reusable SharePoint-based templates that use real design system components to speed up handoff to engineering.

What we ship

I’m focused on bringing AI into SharePoint in a way that feels useful and trustworthy. We’re exploring agentic widgets built on first- and third-party skills, moving from static content to intent-driven experiences that help people find information, understand it, and act.

About

[ 06 ]

Emily Watson Purewal smiling outdoors in a knit hat and winter coat

I always tend to the culture first.

Before design, I spent years studying systems of a different kind: somatic practice, martial arts, herbalism, therapeutic massage. That formation gives me an intuition for how energy moves through organizations: where it gets stuck, where it wants to flow, and what conditions help people show up whole.

I'm also a poet who feels deeply, and sometimes I paint, but mostly these days I write. I love supporting people in realizing their dreams, especially designers bursting with passion and talent. They need a steady hand and a strong voice to guide them through the wilderness of product-making in fast-paced, sometimes chaotic environments. I am their lighthouse. We work hard, but we have fun. I believe good culture is foundational to good products.

I'm a South Carolina native but have lived in Asheville for many years. I spent 8 years in San Jose, CA and relocated back home post-Covid to be closer to my family. I've been working remotely since 2020.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

Toni Morrison