Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelcy Parrish.
Hi Kelcy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My path has been a mix of creativity, curiosity, and a lot of figuring things out as I go.
I’ve always been drawn to making things with my hands. I remember being in grade school, cutting up magazines and pasting together collages, completely absorbed in the process of arranging colors, words, and images into something that felt like mine. Somewhere along the way, I started wondering how someone could actually be an “artist” as a profession.
As I got older, especially as a teenager in the early 2000s, I also became comfortable with computers and digital tools. That combination of being artistic and being willing to figure things out digitally, gave me the confidence to pursue graphic design. It felt like a path where both sides of me could come together.
That led me to study graphic design at Baylor University where I fell even more in love with visual storytelling, especially studio art and painting.
After college, I followed a more traditional graphic design career path, but I’ve always kept some kind of hands-on creative practice on the side. Sometimes that looked like painting. Sometimes it was freelance client work. Sometimes it was hand-addressing wedding invitation envelopes. I think I’ve always needed an outlet where I could make something tangible and personal.
Professionally, that creative foundation eventually led me into design strategy. Today, I work as a Senior Design Strategist at IBM Consulting, where my work lives at the intersection of strategy, communication, and design — shaping presentations, visual systems, and experiences that help people understand not just what something is, but why it matters.
But I think the more honest version of my story is that I’ve spent a lot of my life learning how to trust my own voice. I’ve always had big creative instincts, but for a long time I didn’t know exactly what to do with them. Over time, through design, motherhood, therapy, art, and different seasons of life, I’ve started to see that my work is really about connection — helping people feel something, understand something, or see themselves in a new way.
One pattern I’ve noticed is that wherever I work, I tend to start things that bring people together. At LIN Media, I founded an employee-led volunteer initiative called Vol-LIN-teers. At AffiniPay, I started AffiniCares, another volunteer group focused on giving back. At Girl Scouts of Central Texas, I created a monthly “Power Hour” to help the team connect and grow. Most recently at IBM, I started an internal podcast for my team as a way for us to share stories, learn from each other, and build community. These are always the initiatives that I feel the most proud of.
Becoming a mom has also changed me in the best and most challenging ways. My son, Tripp, has made me more tender, more focused, and more aware of how quickly life moves. Motherhood has stretched me creatively and emotionally, and it has made me even more determined to build a life and body of work that feels meaningful.
Today, I’m continuing to grow both professionally and personally. I’m pursuing my MBA, developing new creative ideas, painting more, and exploring what it looks like to blend strategy, design, community, and real human experience into something bigger. I don’t have every piece figured out yet, but I’ve learned that the best parts of my story have usually come from following the quiet pull toward what feels true.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been a perfectly smooth road, but I’m grateful for the way the harder seasons have shaped me.
One of the biggest challenges came very early in my career. I experienced an unexpected layoff from my first job out of college, in an environment that ultimately was not the right fit. At the time, it felt devastating. I was fresh out of school, still trying to understand who I was as a designer, and suddenly I had to rebuild my portfolio, rebuild my confidence, and figure out how to promote myself in the very competitive design world of Austin, Texas. Looking back, that season deflated me more than I realized, but it also became one of the most important turning points in my life. It forced me to start again with more intention.
During that season, I met an incredible mentor, Karen Barry, of Flywheel Creative, in the most unexpected way — while we were both working at a Starbucks. She saw something in me at a time when I was having a hard time seeing it in myself. She gave me a chance, helped me get back on my feet, and reminded me that I was a real designer with real talent. That experience changed me. It taught me how powerful encouragement can be, especially when someone is rebuilding.
I’ve also had to work through confidence and perfectionism. I can be someone who sees ten possible directions at once, which is a gift creatively, but it can also make it hard to move forward. There have been seasons where I overthought, second-guessed, or waited for everything to feel “ready” before putting something out into the world. I’m learning that growth usually comes from doing the thing before you feel completely ready.
Motherhood has been another beautiful but challenging turning point. Becoming a mom has stretched me in ways I could not have fully prepared for. It has made my life fuller and more meaningful, but it has also forced me to rethink time, energy, identity, ambition, and what it means to keep creating while also caring for someone else. I think a lot of women can relate to that tension — wanting to be present for your family while also feeling the pull of your own dreams and creative work.
So no, it has not always been smooth. But the struggles have helped me become more honest about who I am and what I want to build. I’m still learning, but I’m much more willing now to take up space, follow the idea, and trust that even a difficult detour can lead somewhere meaningful. In the end, I think you have to keep looking ahead and keep believing in yourself, even when it feels impossible — especially then.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My professional work sits at the intersection of strategy, storytelling, design, and human connection.
I’m currently a Senior Visual Design Strategist at IBM Consulting, where I help lead design strategy for high-stakes client proposals, executive presentations, and orals. A lot of my work involves taking complex, technical ideas and turning them into clear, compelling stories that people can understand, remember, and believe in.
I specialize in visual storytelling, presentation design, brand systems, proposal strategy, and helping teams communicate with more clarity and confidence. In my current role, I partner with sales leaders, executives, subject matter experts, writers, and solution teams to shape everything from executive slide decks and submission documents to interactive prototypes, microsites, and client-facing experiences. Many of these projects are tied to major business opportunities, so the work has to be both beautiful and strategic — moving quickly, holding up under pressure, and helping teams tell the strongest possible story.
One thing I’m proud of is the way I’ve learned to lead inside high-pressure, fast-moving work without pretending I can or should do everything alone. I’ve gotten better at recognizing when I need help, asking for support before things become unmanageable, and bringing people into the work with clarity and confidence. I’m often responsible for coordinating other designers or team members who join mid-project, sometimes when timelines are tight and the work is already moving quickly. I’ve been praised for my ability to delegate, organize the moving pieces, and help others understand where they can plug in — while still keeping ownership of the overall story, quality, and direction.
That is one of the parts of my professional growth I’m most proud of: learning that leadership is not always about carrying the whole thing yourself. Sometimes it is knowing what needs to be done, knowing who can help, communicating clearly, and keeping the team moving without letting the work — or the people — fall through the cracks.
I’m also naturally drawn to building community inside the places I work. Whether through volunteer initiatives, team gatherings, or an internal podcast at IBM, I like creating things that help people feel more connected, inspired, and equipped to do meaningful work.
At the heart of it, I’m proud to be someone who can move between big-picture strategy and small creative details. I can zoom out and help shape the story, then zoom all the way in and care about the spacing, the rhythm, the color, the words, and the feeling. That balance — strategic and creative, polished and human — is where I feel most at home.
How do you think about luck?
I think luck has played a bigger role in my life than I probably realized when I was younger. I’ve worked hard, but I also know that timing, people, and unexpected circumstances have shaped a lot of my path.
One of the clearest examples is the shift to remote work that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, that season was incredibly difficult for so many people and in so many ways, but it also changed the way many companies thought about work, hiring, and flexibility. That shift opened doors that may not have been available to me in the same way before.
Around that same time, the hiring market changed dramatically, and I ended up landing my role at IBM — a job that truly felt like a dream opportunity for the direction I wanted my career to go. It gave me the chance to do bigger, more strategic design work, collaborate with incredibly smart people, and grow into a version of myself professionally that I had been working toward for years.
The flexibility of remote work has also been a form of luck I don’t take lightly. It has allowed me to build a career I’m proud of while also being present for my family in a way that means a lot to me. Becoming a mom has made me even more grateful for work that allows me to contribute at a high level while still having moments of real presence at home. That balance is not something everyone has access to, and I try not to take it for granted.
I also feel extremely lucky when I think about the people in my life. My community has carried me, encouraged me, challenged me, and opened doors for me at different points along the way. From mentors who believed in me when I was still rebuilding my confidence, to coworkers who have trusted me with big opportunities, to friends and family who support me behind the scenes — I can see how much of my story has been shaped by people.
So yes, I believe in hard work, but I also believe in paying attention to good luck when it shows up. Sometimes luck looks like timing. Sometimes it looks like a person taking a chance on you. Sometimes it looks like an unexpected shift that changes the whole direction of your life. The older I get, the more I see that success is usually some combination of preparation, resilience, timing, and community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kelcyparrishdesign.com
- Instagram: @kelcycreates and @kelcyparrish
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelcyparrish/
