Frances Yllana
Senior Manager, Design Operations, Coforma
Frances Yllana is a design and organizational operations leader, writer and facilitator who empowers and champions people to succeed beyond their own expectations. Frances is energized by making the joy of accomplishment more accessible and equitable, so those in the communities she serves can find and share their own inspiration to drive positive change in the world around them.
Frances's range of expertise spans the areas of craft, leadership and operations, inclusive of branding, advertising, copywriting, strategy, video, illustration, digital and environmental, experience design and enterprise software. Outside of work, she is experienced in non-profit management, visioning + strategy and is highly active in multiple communities of practice. She serves as a professor of DesignOps Assembly Learning Labs and is helping to lead the DesignOps Assembly knowledge base initiative, and she also hosts the DesignOps Ed Salon webinar series for AIGA. She is also very active in organizing and producing small- or large-scale experiences for non-profit and civic missions and has been a leader of AIGA’s Design For Democracy committee and their national Get Out the Vote campaigns since 2016. She also serves as Secretary of the AIGA national board of directors.
Rosenverse talks by Frances:
" Design ops is like the design version of DevOps—taking care of optimizing processes so designers can do their best work. "
DesignOps Exposed: What do our peers really think of us?
September 11, 2025
" Brianna cultivates a leadership ecosystem that not only adapts but thrives on rapid change. "
Theme 2 Intro
September 24, 2024
" AI can help us develop better alt text for images, which improves accessibility for unsighted users. "
The Big Question about Impact: A Panel Discussion
September 24, 2024
" Artists are messengers of the ideal. That’s why design ops can make those ideals more palpable in agencies. "
DesignOps–Leading the Path to Parity
April 27, 2023
" We don’t need another hero — we’re on a journey together, sometimes converging, sometimes diverging. "
D.E.A.R.R. Diaries (Discipline, Experience, Architecture, Reflection + Revolution)
November 16, 2022