Spotify Design
Head of Design, Spotify Advertising
From 2021 to 2023 I ran Product Design and User Research for the R&D side of Spotify Advertising, and grew the design org from 34 to 62 people in 18 months to cover 3 product areas: self-serve advertising, podcast publishing, and Spotify’s ad formats. A few of the projects I’m proudest of:
Ways of Working. My first major project: leading a cross-functional effort to redesign our commercialization process, with “phase gates” added so every work stream moved through the same checkpoints. Here’s the case study.
Spotify Ads Accessibility Northstar. I wrote the accessibility playbook for our R&D and Sales and Marketing organizations and rolled it out across both. Here’s an export of the slides.
Design Ethics Northstar. I shipped the Product Design organization’s Design Ethics playbook. Here’s an export of those slides too.
Design System company bet. Our Advertising and Publishing surfaces had drifted apart, and Spotify’s design system, Encore, needed a stronger web layer, so I made the case for a company-wide “bet” on a fuller web component library and led it. Teams shipped faster on it, and a fast-growing set of products started to look like one family.
Executive sponsor, DIB. I built and led the strategy for our diversity, inclusion and belonging team, which brought expertise and accountability to our product work and became a resource for employees across the org. I also got to work with the immensely talented Krystal Lauk on the team’s DIB brand identity and creative assets, which you’ll find further down this page.
Executive sponsor, Equitable Design and UX. A Spotify-wide program to make sure everyone, whatever their ability, circumstance or location, gets the same shot at using and benefiting from our products. I guided the work across 5 workstreams: App Performance, Accessibility, Localization, Ethics, and Safety.
The hands-on work
The rest of this page is the hands-on side of those years: creative direction, communication design and design-culture work I took on above and beyond the leadership role.
The intro to our Global Design Days sizzle reel, created by Milk Inside with my creative direction.
A recap short film of my team’s 2022 offsite, filmed and produced by Picnic Studios with my creative direction.
The DIB brand identity, illustrated by Krystal Lauk with my creative direction, followed by more of the design-culture work from those years: the Amplify mission brand and offsite art, the Good Design Is posters, sticker packs, podcast art, and badge and logo explorations.
