A Love Letter to My Job: Six Years at SEGD

May 19, 2026

Cybelle Jones

Six years after stepping into SEGD during one of the most uncertain moments in recent history, Cybelle Jones reflects on community, creativity, loss, resilience, and the people who continue to make this organization feel deeply human.

I started at SEGD in May 2020, just as the pandemic was shutting everything down.

I had left a career at Gallagher & Associates, where I’d been since 1993. They threw me a virtual going-away party, and honestly, it made leaving easier. Not having to see everyone in person would have been too emotional. But when I look at those screenshots now, most of us are still dear friends. We stay in touch as often as humanly possible.

I found all these other screenshots too: coronavirus case counts and death tolls, virtual birthday parties, photos of old workmates meeting outside in summer, all of us in masks. The world was precarious. I felt precarious.

At the same time, I was kicking off my new role as CEO of SEGD, and the organization had just canceled its in-person conference, leaving behind a financial deficit. We were running team workshops on Zoom and shifting everything online: the Global Design Awards, the Achievement Awards. Ed Schlossberg, our incoming Fellow, was gracious enough to join us live via video. Then came the murder of George Floyd, and the weight of everything got heavier.

I had gone from a team of 100-plus people I had known, hired, mentored, and built things with across scale and discipline, to a team of just eight, which then had to become four. That’s a particular kind of loss.

But as daunting as it all was, there was also something electric about leading during a truly disruptive moment. Within four months, we had produced three virtual events, one of them, How Soon Is Now: Designing Change, spanning an entire month and featuring 35 speakers covering equity, sustainability, accessibility, and bias; all culminating in SEGD’s manifesto, which we commissioned Harold Green III to write and perform.

In those first four months alone, I got to collaborate with old peer Joel Krieger, Board member Lucy Holmes, and meet so many people who would come to mean a great deal to me, including Aki Carpenter, L’Rai Arthur Mensah, Joe Marianek, Marquise Stillwell, Ashley Lukasik, Monica Coghlan, Barry Pousman, Andy Chen, Waqas Jawaid, Kristine Matthews, and so many more.

I felt such a sense of urgency and creative synergy. Yet I also felt a sense of mourning for the team of designers I had grown up collaborating with, shoulder to shoulder. But eventually I found new ways to express my creativity by curating talks, building a new website, refreshing the brand, and deepening my realization that I was now championing the most important kind of design—the kind that connects people to place, and that evokes meaning and memory.

That brought me to SEGD’s founders, whom I had never met, John Barry and Rich Burns. It brought me to young designers still in school, looking for their people, looking for community. And it brought me closer to my own staff and volunteers, and to understanding just how much good work they had already been doing, and how much love and care they brought to members.

Giving someone a free membership when they lost their job. Talking to an older member through a new digital platform. Sending a handwritten card to someone who has lost a loved one. Sending candy to staff on Valentine’s Day.

It was a different vibe, a different culture. But you build on what’s working and let go of what isn’t. You adapt. You add a “Karma Cleanse” to every Monday morning check-in. You gather everyone at your place on the Chesapeake, invite their families, and create a retreat that costs almost nothing but does everything for bonding.

Six years later, I can see how much we’ve accomplished. Standing on the other side of that hill, I can also see how much more there is to do.

So I want to say a huge thank you to every single volunteer at SEGD: Board members past and present, the Academic Task Force, Racial Justice Commission, Accessibility Committee, Chapter Chairs, event chairs, sponsors and supporters, award winners, speakers, the PPGs, consultants, and on and on.

What they all have in common is a genuine belief in doing the hard work, the kind that makes the world a little better and brings joy through design.

It sounds simple. But it really is at the heart of SEGD.

If you know us, I hope you feel it too.

This is a love letter to my job.