I lead product strategy and design for enterprise ads and AI-native products, where the roadmap is full and the hard part is choosing. I start with the strategy and how the backend works, then design and prototype against the real system, so the work is technically grounded and informs product direction. With a team, I set the bar and coach designers into owning what they ship.
Six weeks of product strategy, then design through a public launch. The search asks before it runs, confidence shows as tiers traced to sources, and engineering built from working prototypes instead of pictures.
Request the passwordBuilds a campaign from a goal, a budget and creative. I led its design across creation, delivery and reporting. $600M+ annual run rate at general availability.
I led its design end to end. $600M+ annual run rate at general availability.
Lets advertisers say what is worth more, and bidding leans toward it. I set the direction and coached the designer who shipped it. Bid Multiplier shipped first.
Menus organized by team became columns organized by advertiser jobs. I led it across eight organizations. 25% fewer navigation opens at the same page visits.
I led it across eight organizations. 25% fewer navigation opens.
Thirty-five operator sessions shaped a twelve-capability blueprint for internal tools. I co-led the research and co-authored the blueprint, then took ticketing to version one.
Three versions across four URLs became one surface, with a panel showing where each audience runs. I set what got built first and designed both tracks.
One framework so any team could ship mid-flight campaign advice, plus feedback the ranking model could read. I led both, as design lead for a team of three. Snooze, mute and dismiss shipped in 2021.
Claude writes each scene, ElevenLabs voices it, and the listener can redirect the story while it plays. I designed and built it end to end with Claude Code. Public beta at sageorange.fm.
“From an engineering perspective, we pivoted to a more integrated UI and backend design as a direct result of Hew calling out the need for better transparency, the need for easy evidence inspection, and making complexity accessible behind a simple UI.”
“Influencing roadmaps with the optimal set up framework, it's difficult not to feel the impact you've had. You've become a leader that our cross-functional partners want in the room.”
“I greatly appreciated that he stepped up to lead the team while [our design manager] was on leave, this ensured we maintained momentum during planning and also delivered quick turnaround work for executive reviews (P+ adoption).”
“Ultimately I think Hew’s biggest strength is that he dives deep into problems and makes sure that any recommendation he’s proposing is well reasoned and takes into consideration every possible known factor.”
“In my experience he always starts his investigation from the needs of the customer. This first principles approach not only led to intuitive designs, but also uncovered opportunities to improve the experience within Ads Manager at large.”
“Formally titled a designer, but constantly acting as a little bit of everything: a strategic researcher, a technologist, a product manager.”
“Hew proactively proposed solutions like incorporating bid modifiers to enable user control, and then demonstrated the technical feasibility.”
“Always 3 steps ahead, Hew is a true mastermind and strategic connector who innately identifies gaps, opportunities and patterns across a product.”
Additional reviews and endorsements on ADPList, LinkedIn, IGotAnOffer and Bayesian Leaf.
My product and design practice for companies building with AI. Evaluation frameworks, and the standards that decide when a model-driven capability is ready for customers, on an operating layer I built that takes a structured brief to a working prototype and an engineering-ready data contract. As fractional Head of Design for an applied AI platform, I reframed the core interaction model, specified the analytics events the product was missing, and built working prototypes against the real codebase.
My product studio. Most products build a world and ask you to move into it. These enter the one you already live in. Two products so far, both built solo, and both start from a person and a place.
A payments startup for diners and restaurants. I co-founded it and ran its product. TAG FinTech Innovation Award.
A music technology startup. I directed a team of six through Songster, a gamified audio workstation and an SXSW Interactive Accelerator finalist.
Essays on decision infrastructure and building AI-native products.
Read moreSupportive and collaborative are phases, not ranks.
I'm a child of journalists, so I grew up in and out of newsrooms. A newsroom does one thing. It takes something complicated and makes it usable to somebody who has to act on it. I have done that work ever since, on the ad platforms at Meta and Pinterest, the operations behind Opendoor and mobile news at CNN. Today I manage a product design team at Meltwater, back in media. The same instinct runs through Bayesian Leaf, where I apply it inside other companies, and Human Commons, where I build the products I think should exist.
I manage a principal and senior designers at Meltwater. At Pinterest I managed six designers as interim design manager and cut delivery time 30% by consolidating three overlapping workstreams and resetting how the teams worked together. As design lead, without a reporting line, I led five designers and two researchers on the Ads Manager platform at Pinterest and six designers on Ads Targeting at Meta.
I think in systems, in the frameworks and governance that orchestrate the work. Frameworks other teams chose to build against, at Meta and again at Pinterest. The Pinterest framework began before the work had a mandate. A governance process that continued deciding what shipped after I left. A leveling framework a growing design team will hire against. A designer who now leads a product line of their own. The design that sits on top is craft. I write code because a picture of a thing will not tell you whether it works.
