# Belmer Negrillo > Design Director | 20+ Yrs | Scaling Design Teams & Business Impact | AI/AR/Hardware Products | Ex-Meta, IDEO, eBay, and startups. Expert in products that connect emotionally with people. Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/belmer As a Design Director, I lead cross-functional teams in translating emerging technologies into products that fit into people’s lives, champion human potential, and drive measurable business outcomes. My expertise: • Strategic vision for 0–1 product launches with hardware/software integration. • Building and scaling high-performing design teams through mentorship and culture design. • Aligning product innovation with business strategy (revenue, retention, market position). • Translating complex technology (AI, AR, real-time systems) into intuitive, emotionally resonant experiences. I've shaped strategic thinking at leadership levels by creating a human-centered product vision directly connected to business impact. ______________ LONG VERSION As a child, I constantly experimented, imagining I'd grow up to be a mad scientist. Today, that spirit of curiosity drives my work as an innovator and creative leader. I see design as a balance: the scrappy ingenuity of a pirate and the conviction of Robin Hood, bringing discoveries back to the people. That philosophy shapes how I build teams and mentor others. Whether designing literacy education for Brazilian public schools (teaching systems to recognize incomplete mental models and create targeted exercises), working with emerging technologies like AI and AR, or building design teams, the principle remains: notice what someone is thinking, respond with care, and adjust to help them grow. As a director, I've learned this human-centered approach extends beyond products. It's about creating conditions where teams feel genuinely trusted and aligned, where designers understand business outcomes, where leaders understand design, and where emerging technology serves human growth. My work has been honored by Webby Awards, Cannes Lions, The One Show, and Danish INDEX. I hold several patents and have been featured in Italian Fabrica's "Mail Me," Dos Logos, and Web Designing magazine. I regularly speak on design leadership and human-AI collaboration: • "Easy as a Kiss" — Humanizing Technology Through Design | Turin, 2021 • Interaction 20 — "Smart" is to Combine Human Intuition and AI | Milan, 2020 • Interaction South America — Empathetic Machines: Adaptive UX | Florianópolis, 2017 • AI Summit SF — Designing for Human-Computer Collaboration | 2017 • UX Strat USA — Personalization Strategy Based on Adaptive Learning | Providence, 2016 • SXSW Interactive — A New Personalization Model | Austin, 2016 ## Work Experience ### Director of Product Design Innovation @ Wells Fargo Jan 2023 – Present | Menlo Park, California, United States I lead the Innovation Enablement team within Wells Fargo's Strategy, Digital, and Innovation group, focusing on 0–1 opportunities where the path forward isn't yet clear. We partner with senior leaders across lines of business to identify market opportunities, define strategic pathways, develop initial prototypes, and establish product roadmaps. My team brings specialized skills in behavior science, strategic design, and UX design to the table. We bridge external vendors with internal systems while maintaining an outside-in perspective on tech, product, digital, and business capabilities. This enables us to manage change, align stakeholders, and drive enterprise-wide innovation. Current projects include harnessing AI to scale financial advice, defining RAG/LLM tool experiences, and imagining collaborative financing models. ### Mentor for Italian startups @ Camera di commercio di Torino Jan 2015 – Present | Turin, Piedmont, Italy The Turin Chamber of Commerce runs a Mentoring program to encourage the exchange of managerial experience on international markets among professionals with Piedmontese roots (or who graduated in Piedmont) and entrepreneurs based in the region. I was one of the founder members of the program. I have mentored startups in IoT, smart devices, online therapy, travel, and innovation consultancy. ### Creative Design Director - MetaWorks @ Meta Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | Burlingame, California, United States After years of management, I took a complex horizontal senior IC position to identify opportunities (on a 1-2 years timeframe) across product groups and locations in the org. I bring XFN teams together to collaborate and realize explorative projects under the scope of hybrid work, impacting current and future roadmaps. This role balances a tense relationship between being a thought leader who de-risks product development by testing hypotheses — challenging assumptions, reassessing the 'why' and the 'what' — and getting buy-in from product groups that potentially will have their roadmap disrupted by the findings. ### Sr. Design Manager for Home & Calling Experiences @ Meta Jan 2019 – Jan 2022 | Menlo Park Led Calling and Home Experiences for Portal, a category-defining consumer device with no clear product precedent. Navigated high ambiguity to define Portal's strategic direction from video-calling UX to co-experiences, ensuring every interaction created a genuine connection, not just tech novelty. Co-defined strategy and vision for Portal and Metaverse Persistent Spaces, influencing Meta's 4-year plan and shaping MetaWorks organization Launched AR experiences (Story Time, Mic Drop) that prioritized bonding over gimmicks. Co-watching achieved 20% user retention vs. Messenger's 6% Scaled design team from 4 to 15, coached 2 into management, zero attrition during pandemic ### Lead Product Designer — Building 8 @ Meta Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Menlo Park, CA Led design for Portal's flagship launch features (Smart Camera, Story Time) during Building 8's mission to create category-defining consumer hardware in emerging spaces (AR, VR, AI). Owned design from early exploration to launch, including audio AR work that informed Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. ### Sr. Design Lead @ IDEO Jan 2013 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area Led Design for Learning practice, applying human-centered design to education innovation, from classroom solutions to systemic challenges. Also led social impact work in financial inclusion, healthcare enrollment, data transparency, and civic engagement. I helped to launch a digital literacy platform for public schools in Brazil that provides an advanced diagnostic on the child’s current understanding of the written system based on open-ended exercises. http://www.ideo.com/expertise/education/ ### Principal Interaction Designer @ IDEO Jan 2011 – Jan 2013 IDEO is an innovation and design firm that uses a human-centered, design- based approach to help organizations generate new offerings and build new capabilities. IDEO has been independently ranked by global business leaders as one of the world’s most innovative companies. I worked on projects ranging from promoting healthy financial habits to the unbanked in South America to using data visualization in a mobile app to increase government transparency. From helping people to make sense of healthcare choices to exploring ways to make a large newspaper business sustainable in a digital platform. ### Lead User Experience Designer @ eBay Jan 2008 – Jan 2011 eBay acquired my previous company, VUVOX, in July 2008. At eBay I have generated 8 patent applications for new services and Rich Media interactive interfaces. I led the redesign of the Search Results Page, created a DIY step-by-step guide authoring tool and participated in several R&D projects that impacted eBay's product roadmap. ### Sr. Interaction & Visual Designer @ Vuvox Jan 2006 – Jan 2008 As Senior User Experience Designer and Art Director at VUVOX, I designed tools that integrate the complex requirements for the professional multimedia authoring market with the simplicity expected from online applications. An example is ‘Collage’, which appeals to photojournalists demanding professional level tools to tell a story with text, photos and videos. ‘Collage’ as well as the regular consumer looking to have an easy way to create a visually appealing presentation for sharing media with friends. ### Interaction Designer @ Freelancer Jan 2006 – Jan 2006 ### Interaction Designer @ IDEO Jan 2005 – Jan 2005 I participated in multi-disciplinary teams as an Interaction Designer. I worked on the development of interfaces and new functionality for a Microsoft desktop application; an R&D project for light behaviors for HP’s home products; and user-research for in-store experiences for Nike-iD (customization of shoes). ### Interaction Designer @ MESO DIgital Interiors GmbH Jan 2003 – Jan 2003 | Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany I worked on the development of multimedia installations that involved the use of sensors, videos and mechanical interfaces for clients such as Mercedes and for a giant nomadic sphere with interactive spaces inside for the 2006 Germany World cup. I participated in projects using the software VVVV, a visual programming language. An example is the artistic project Interflux, by Achim Wollscheid for a public school in Munich. ### Visual Designer & Art Director @ BijaRi Jan 2001 – Jan 2002 | São Paulo, Brazil In this small studio founded by 8 architects, the liberty of expression and the flexibility of rules made BijaRi an excellent place for creativity and cooperation. In this studio no one had a fixed job description and the work was shared according to the expertise and availability of its members. This was a sort of creative think tank that produced varied and compelling work. I worked as a graphic designer, video clip director, video editor, scenography director, performer and VJ. ### Art Director @ DM9DDB Jan 2000 – Jan 2001 I worked as an Art Director planning and creating campaigns, marketing and site actions, directing projects from the conception to the management of production houses and teams built for each project. I also participated in the creation of the Digital Media Department of DM9DDB and implemented a model of integrated communication among all medias types. Clients included Lucky Strike, Itaú (Home Banking), AOL, Honda, Philips, Lokau (online auction) and Americanas.com (retail). ### Art Director @ Ogilvy Interactive Jan 1998 – Jan 2000 As an Interaction Designer, I worked on planning, creating and designing the information architecture for online marketing pieces. I designed campaigns and sites for IBM, Telefonica, Globalstar, PageNet, Sul America Insurance, among others. I participated in structuring one of the first digital agencies in the country that was integrated with a traditional advertising agency. ### Art Director Jr. @ Hipermídia Agencia Digital Jan 1997 – Jan 1998 ## Education ### Masters in Interactive Design Interaction Design Institute Ivrea ### BA in Social Communication ESPM ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/belmernegrillo - Portfolio: http://www.mindness.net/ - Portfolio: http://www.mindness.net/ivrea --- Source: https://flows.cv/belmer JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/belmer/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13