# 🐱 Catt Small πŸ‘©πŸΎβ€πŸ’» > Product Design Leader, #GDoCExpo Executive Director, & Creative Technologist Location: Brooklyn, New York, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/catt Hi! My name is Catt Small and I love to create meaningful experiences with people. Over the past 15+ years, I've helped companies of all sizes achieve better outcomes. I move fast and thoughtfully by collaborating with product teams to create a strategic vision, prioritize potential solutions, and bring ideas to life. I strive to make the world (and its wide web) a better-looking, more human place. I love diving deep into challenging problems to find solutions that improve the lives of people around the world. Read more about me and see my work at cattsmall.com. ## Work Experience ### Course Instructor @ Maven Jan 2024 – Present Teaches the Staff Designer course to cohorts of 30–50 individuals once per quarter. ### Staff Product Designer - Cross-product Experience @ Dropbox Jan 2023 – Present | Remote Drives strategic initiatives that create cohesion across Dropbox's portfolio of products. Facilitates conversations with product and design leadership that result in cross-organizational alignment. Leads the design of experiences that elevate how millions of customers use Dropbox products through hands-on work and collaboration with numerous cross-functional teams. Directs and mentors individual designers to improve their craft outcomes while supporting their professional development. ### Executive Director @ Game Devs of Color Expo Jan 2022 – Present | New York, New York, United States Co-creates the vision and strategy for an annual event that highlights game creators of color through a virtual conference and gaming expo. Hires and directs contractors for various initiatives. Leads the 4-person Communications committee that connects members of our 15K+ person online audience across social media, email, and traditional news sites with learning and funding opportunities. Proposes and implements changes to internal policies that create alignment and accountability. Identifies areas of operational and budgetary inefficiency; proposes and implements solutions that reduce efforts spent on information management. ### Co-Founder & Co-Organizer @ Game Devs of Color Expo Jan 2015 – Jan 2022 | New York, New York, United States Drove the strategy for an annual game development event with 15k+ social media community (grown from 0) and $500k+ budget. Directed design of the website and social media presence in collaboration with various committee members. Hired, managed, and grew the talent of 10+ contractors across design, motion graphics, and communications. Curated talks, games, and the event schedule. Led the transition from five years of hybrid events to a fully virtual event due to COVID. Built a culture of transparency, respect, and accountability. ### Design Advisor @ Scout Jan 2025 – Jan 2025 Provides product design direction and advice to founders of a revenue-positive startup with the goal of helping them scale and reach their next stage of growth. Created a custom design system for the product and implemented the company's rebrand within the system. ### Angel Investor & Design Advisor @ Merit Jan 2022 – Jan 2025 Provided product design direction and advice to founders of a revenue-positive startup with the goal of helping them scale and reach their next stage of growth. Drove the design of several key user flows to aid the company in productizing previously manual workflows. ### Angel Investor & Design Advisor @ Artistree Jan 2022 – Jan 2024 ### Director of Product Design @ All Turtles Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | Remote Facilitated the creation of vision, culture, and rituals for the 5-person Product Design team. Created and documented workflows and methodologies that helped designers do their best work, efficiently. Planned project staffing and timelines in collaboration with studio partners, Design Operations, Brand Design Director, and Head of Design. Co-created cross-organizational processes that clarified expectations, roles, and responsibilities of employees at all levels. Coached reports to reach ideal outcomes through collaborative ideation and curiosity-driven design feedback rooted in strategic objectives. Assigned a report to a stretch project that resulted in a promotion. Interviewed and hired senior design talent. Contributed to potential growth of the company through regular business development, driving connections with startups creating the future of remote work. ### Staff Product Designer - Zero-to-one Initiative @ Asana Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 | Remote Led product design for the ideation through launch of Asana's new goal management product. Led the creation of a 2–3 year product vision for integrated goal management in Asana. Led the design of continuous improvements to Goals in Asana through direct impact and collaboration with a variety of other designers across several teams. Collaborated with teams across Asana to create experiences that promote clarity for organizations using goal management. Facilitated workshops that help teams within Asana create a shared design language; align on customer problems; and generate ideas for innovative, impactful solutions. Co-created and conducted research plans with UXR and PM to understand our customers and validate the viability of concepts, the usability of solutions, and the behavioral impact of intended workflow improvements. Mentored and supported junior and senior Product Designers to accelerate their growth while ensuring their designs meet customer experience standards. Contributed a design perspective to roadmapping and staffing conversations, enabling Product to prioritize work and ensure teams are set up for success. Collaborated with Design Operations and Design Management to identify and implement process improvements that increase design efficiency. Represented Asana at conferences and on podcasts. Contributed to the improvement of design operations at Asana by providing input on competency matrices, Figma processes, and internal programs to accelerate design learning. ### Senior Product Designer - Trust & Safety @ Etsy Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Brooklyn, NY Facilitated the creation of a customer service performance dashboard that enables Etsy's 2 million sellers to better understand and abide by company policies. Designed improvements to internal Trust & Safety tools that will save agents up to 100 clicks per task. Organized discovery and design workshops in order to empower the Trust & Safety product team with knowledge of the issues Etsy's customer service agents face. Created seller personas for Etsy's Trust & Safety personas, therefore contributing to product strategy needs. Mentored designers and participated in hiring and recruiting initiatives. Contributed design guidelines to Etsy's design system. ### Senior Product Designer - Seller Growth & Insights @ Etsy Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Brooklyn, NY Collaborated across teams to design, build, and launch cross-platform tools such as sales and coupons. Designed and released two new iterations of seller stats that helped 2 million Etsy sellers take growth actions with data and insights from Etsy; 670K sellers use the product each month. Created design vision and product strategy by leading product conversations, facilitating design exercises, and producing useful design artifacts. Led the creation of seller personas, which were based on over 20 research participants with Etsy shops and have since been used to generate over 40k new users of seller marketing tools, leading to an increase in revenue. Contributed new components and design guidelines to Etsy's design system. I also co-led two employee resource groups at Etsy, including one year managing communications for their largest ERG for marginalized genderfolk called MAGIC (100+ members). ### Product Designer - Payments and Checkout @ Etsy Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Brooklyn, NY Designed seller-focused product and marketing user experiences for Etsy's payments platform, including the launch of Etsy Payments, a new product that earned the company millions of additional dollars in revenue. Led the initiative to create usage guidelines for Etsy’s seller design system. ### Senior Product Designer - Growth & Monetization @ SoundCloud Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | New York, New York Designed and prototyped user experiences for Android, iOS, and the web. Contributed to design vision and product strategy for monetization and connected devices. Collaborated with several teams to launch cross-platform monetization features and products. This was also my first time hiring, managing, and mentoring two design interns who then became full-time employees. ### Product Designer - Monetization @ SoundCloud Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | New York, New York Designed the Android and web purchase experience for a new subscription service. Headed the design of horizontal and vertical video ad products on mobile. Led the design of a highly-requested promotional tool for creators. Additional contributions included dedigning the receiver design for the company’s Google Cast integration, catalyzing the generation of personas that provided design direction for the company, and co-founding the company's employee resource group for Black people. ### Co-founder, UX & Game Designer @ Brooklyn Gamery Jan 2013 – Jan 2016 | Brooklyn, NY Formed an indie game development studio that also organized events for the games community. Designed mechanics, UX, animations, and graphics for video games. Worked with an agile team to develop games in a fast-paced, lean manner. Facilitated usability tests and participated in quality assurance testing. Managed timelines and overall strategy for games and events. ### UX Designer & Developer @ Bedrocket Media Ventures Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | New York, NY Designed and prototyped user experiences for content management systems and editorial websites. Created design artifacts for reference such as sitemaps, user workflows, and personas. Worked with different departments to remove silos and improve the design process through the incorporation of usability testing, sketching, and constant communication. Other contributions included joining the engineering team part-time to program designs in HTML5, CSS3 via SASS, JavaScript, and AngularJS. Delivered working code for live products. Maintained product feature wiki for reference across teams. ### Freelance Designer & Front-End Developer @ The CATT Suite Jan 2008 – Jan 2014 | New York, NY Solved UX and visual design problems for websites of companies large and small, including Scholastic and NASDAQ OMX. Built websites for clients in various programming languages. Created designs for brochures, posters, business cards, and other types of printed material. ### Product Designer @ NASDAQ OMX Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | New York, NY Designed and built responsive prototypes of user experiences for web apps and marketing websites. Facilitated usability tests, discovery interviews, and design exercises. Prototyped experiences that gracefully degrade when viewed in older browsers. Shipped multiple projects that reached hundreds of thousands of people under short deadlines. Communicated with developers in NASDAQ offices across the world. ### Game Artist, Web Designer, & Writer @ Quantum Box Jan 2009 – Jan 2012 | New York, NY Designed characters, sprites, and various items for video games. Designed Quantum Box's website and blog. Wrote articles about conventions and video games. ### Interface Designer @ ParksByNature Network Jan 2011 – Jan 2012 | New York, NY Designed website & mobile app interfaces for park tourism apps. Designed print collateral such as training manuals for production. Created high-quality visual presentations for computers and iPads. ### Junior Graphic & Web Designer @ NASDAQ OMX Jan 2010 – Jan 2011 Designed and built a new event venue website with JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3. Edited images for video & display in Times Square. Coordinated remote camera shots of NASDAQ display in Times Square. Oversaw the NASDAQ OMX Advantage store, newsletter, & Twitter account. ### Web Design Intern @ City of New York Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 Designed and maintained a modern, efficient, and good-looking Human Resources Administration training website from scratch with short deadlines. ### Web Design Intern @ Alexander Interactive Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 Contributed documentation, designs, and code for client websites. Cropped and edited photos for clients' e-commerce shops. ### Web Design Intern @ d'Art Inc. Jan 2008 – Jan 2008 Helped a small consultancy code and design websites for clients. ### Graphic Designer @ 3iYing Jan 2005 – Jan 2006 Redesigned ad campaigns and products for big brands such as AXE and Playtex. Wrote articles for the Innovation section of BusinessWeek; designed websites, clothes, and ads for major US companies. Edited video for short movies. ## Education ### Master of Science (M.S.) in Integrated Digital Media New York University - Polytechnic School of Engineering Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 ### Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in Graphic Design School of Visual Arts Jan 2007 – Jan 2011 ### Shift Nudge Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 ### Humanity-Centered Masterclass HmntyCntrd Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 ### Business Essentials for Designers Designer Fund Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 ### Advanced Regents High School Diploma in Fine Arts Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School Jan 2003 – Jan 2007 ### Design On Deck Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/cattsmall - Portfolio: http://cattsmall.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/catt JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/catt/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-30