A decade leading design at LinkedIn and Zendesk taught me that quality starts upstream — in how teams, systems, and strategy fit together. I design the organization, not just the interface.
The work I'm proudest of is the people. I lead by mentoring and coaching designers into leaders, building real relationships, and creating teams where everyone can do their best work.
Curiosity is the engine. Following it is how I've built LeadCraft, Facilitator, Dual Creator Cam, and the Technically Speaking podcast — and how it keeps opening new opportunities.
Those threads — design, people, and curiosity — started long before my first design job. When I was 12, our family's home was burglarized and we lost nearly everything. What came next set my course: my father's organization donated an old computer, and I rebuilt it into my first window to the web. Community gave me a way in, and that access grew into a lifelong passion for technology — one I've spent my career paying forward.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
I was born in 1987, in the middle of a brutal Milwaukee snowstorm — the kind of cold that becomes part of the family story. My mother spent her career in the public school system and my father was a pastor. Service and faith were the air in our house long before I had words for either.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my family's home was burglarized while we were away at summer camp. It was devastating. But in the aftermath, my father's organization donated a computer to our household. It was an old, unbranded machine running Windows — essentially a blank canvas. I started spending Fridays at Barnes & Noble reading PC magazines, figuring out which parts I needed — a sound card, a graphics card, a 56K modem — until I had a machine that could run Microsoft Flight Simulator online and host my first website on Yahoo GeoCities.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
A few summers later, I noticed that my mother's school didn't have a website. I offered to build one, and she advocated for a paid role. That was my first job in tech. I was the webmaster.
Iowa City, Iowa
I went on to study Art and Art History with a focus on Graphic Design at the University of Iowa, where I also played Division I football. The weight room at 5 AM taught me more about discipline, commitment, and pushing through discomfort than any design course — lessons I still carry into how I lead teams.
Iowa City, Iowa
My start was in music — promoting concerts and shows for five Grammy-nominated artists, then co-founding a web-based music streaming startup and collaborating with names like DefJam. Chasing audiences and building a product from nothing was how I first fell for technology: not as a subject to study, but as a tool to make something people actually showed up for. That intersection of creativity, entrepreneurship, and tech set the course for everything that followed.
Chicago, Illinois
At Base CRM I stepped into management for the first time, leading UX design for a fast-moving sales platform. It's where I learned that great teams are built on clarity, trust, and a relentless focus on the customer's real job — not just the screen in front of you.
San Francisco, California
At LinkedIn I grew the Marketing Solutions design team from 6 to 26 designers, shaped product strategy, and helped scale a product line from $500M to over $5B in revenue — all while shipping the tools advertisers around the world rely on every day.
San Francisco, California
I leaned into building. Facilitator, a FigJam tool now used by over a thousand facilitators. LeadCraft, a platform for design leaders navigating an era where everything — including how we work with AI — is changing. I don't just lead teams. I build things.
2025
I'm taking a sabbatical to travel the world — following curiosity across Asia and beyond, writing and advising as I go, and meeting designers and builders wherever I land.
Scroll to follow the journey ↓
Tokyo · Kyoto · Busan · Seoul · Jeju · Shanghai · Chengdu · Chongqing · Hong Kong · Taipei · Kaohsiung · Hanoi · Da Nang · Bangkok · Ho Chi Minh City · Singapore · Bali · Sydney
I'm available for full-time roles, speaking engagements, leadership coaching, and advisory work with product and design teams.
Harrison Wheeler