# Christopher Smeder > Design Lead at Asana | YC Alumni Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/christophersmeder I’m a design leader with experience building product–market fit at early-stage startups and driving rapid growth at large enterprise companies. I co-founded Fibo, a Y Combinator–backed startup that was a Slack-like app for construction workers and back-office teams. After Fibo, I led the design of the operations and resident apps for Zeus, a Y Combinator-backed real estate startup that manages over 2,400 unique homes. Previous to that, I was Mindbody’s first UX designer, where I led key redesign projects and helped grow the company into a publicly traded business processing over $5.1 billion in payments annually. ## Work Experience ### Multi-Group Design Lead (IC) — AI Governance, Enterprise, Platform & Comms @ Asana Jan 2026 – Present I am the Multi-Group Design Lead (IC) for four groups (Permissions & AI Governance, Enterprise & Admin, Ecosystem & Platform, and Comms) spanning 12 teams across Asana. Our groups are responsible for building the foundational features that empower customers to adopt AI with confidence while enabling Asana to scale and grow in large enterprise markets. ### Group Design Lead (IC), AI Governance & Enterprise Permissions @ Asana Jan 2024 – Jan 2026 | San Francisco, CA As the Design Lead (IC) for the group spanning Sharing, Collaboration, Permissions, and AI Governance in the Enterprise Pillar at Asana, I was the primary designer for multiple features and responsible for the design quality across the group. ### Staff Product Designer, Enterprise Pillar @ Asana Jan 2020 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco, California, United States Summary of work • Co-led the creation of Asana's multi-year vision that set the strategy for scaling and growing our large enterprise markets. • Primary designer for multiple features from this vision that have strengthened Asana's up-market enterprise capabilities. • This work has proved valuable in winning new large enterprise customers. Helping Asana to transition from a company that was focused on serving SMBs customers to a company that is now the category winner for the Enterprise market. Asana creates project management software used by some of the world's largest companies, cities, and nonprofits — including Amazon, Google, Spotify, Slack, Uber, Salesforce, City of Providence, Manchester City Council, Viessmann, CityFibre, Columbia University, and Lifewater. ### Principal Product Designer @ Zeus Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco, CA I led the design of the operations and resident apps for Zeus, a Y Combinator-backed real estate startup that manages over 2,400 unique homes. Zeus provides flexible living in beautifully designed and thoughtfully furnished neighborhood homes for remote work and business travel. Zeus is in SF, LA, DC, Seattle, NYC, and Boston and is backed by some of the top investors in the world, including Initialized Capital, Y Combinator, Floodgate, NFX, and Airbnb's venture arm. Summary of work: Led key design projects at Zeus • Led the design strategy on Zeus’s consumer app which provides detailed check-in and entry instructions to over 2,400 unique homes. • Primary designer of Zeus’s field app, reducing the time and human hours it takes to onboard and turn over a property between residents. • Primary designer on Zeus’s Top-of-Funnel team. We dramatically increased Google page rank – going from being nearly unfindable to ranking six or higher for key industry phrases. • Primary designer of Zeus’s “Saved Homes” and “Related Results” booking site features, and I helped redesign our listing pages. Led the design side of a nationwide persona, journey map, and storyboarding project • This was a large, 6-month project with multiple quantitative studies (n=800+) and bicoastal, in-home, IDEO style, ethnographic interviews. Led the hiring, onboarding, and mentoring of multiple product designers throughout 2019 • Led the 7-month VP of Design recruitment effort – landing Guthrie Dolin, who previously worked directly with Elon Musk while leading the design of both Tesla’s physical showrooms and their digital website and store. Zeus has served a combined total of over 725,000+ nights of stay to residents (3.8x YoY growth) in 2019, which led to both: • Achieving a $100+ million revenue run rate (300% YoY growth) by the end of 2019. • Securing a $55 million series B with Airbnb as one of the primary investors. ### Product Designer & Executive Mentor @ CS Consulting Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco, CA Platinum Performance, San Francisco, CA | March 2018 – December 2018 Recruited by CEO and Founder during a high-growth period to scale up their equine biomarker study, and drive product & design strategy. Platinum Performance powers the nutrition regimens of Olympic gold medalists, NFL players, and horses at the top levels of competition. • Led CEO, Mark Herthel, and his team in the creation of a 3-year product vision. • Helped Platinum Performance find and hire an experienced lead UX designer. • Helped set up a weekly cadence of design reviews and usability testing. • Introduced Design Thinking & Lean experimentation methods into their product development process. Evidence-Based Courses, San Francisco, CA & UCSB | September 2017 – February 2018 Recruited by the Dir. of Research (Dept. of Psychological & Brain Sciences, UCSB), to design the MVP of their brain training app (https://www.findingfocus.app) and guide their go-to-market & product-market fit strategy. • Designed a brain-training app that was rolled out to 10 high schools in 2018. • A 25-50 school nationwide roll-out was planned for and successfully completed in the fall of 2019. • The app and project received national recognition in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Scientific American, and other publications. • A 2019 academic research study (N=190) of the app revealed improved emotional regulation and stress management. Additionally, the peer-reviewed paper suggested that students adopted a stronger growth mindset about their ability to focus, and that they felt more motivated and confident to train this focusing ability (MDPI article: doi:10.3390/educsci9030230). "I've never been able to sit and read a book but since starting Finding Focus I've read 11 books." —11th Grade Student, Grizzly Challenge Charter School "Finding Focus is one of the greatest things I could ever incorporate into my classroom." —Mr. John Zito, Eli Whitney Technical High School ### Co-Founder, Head of Design @ Fibo Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco, CA Fibo was a Slack-like mobile communication app for the construction industry that was funded by top VCs & angel investors. I was responsible for all design work (product design, brand design, and marketing) and our user research strategy. Results Summary • Designed a mobile communication and work-tracking solution for construction teams. • 43% WoW Revenue Growth during YC program. • $1.8m raised from top investors in the world, including Y Combinator, Fuel Capital, GFC, and several prominent angel investors. • 5-star app store rating ### Lead UX Designer @ MINDBODY, Inc. Jan 2012 – Jan 2016 | San Luis Obispo, California Mindbody is the market leader in health and wellness business management software. I was asked by the CEO and Founder, Rick Stollmeyer, to lead the redesign of Mindbody’s decade-old, out-of-date system, and get it ready for the successful IPO 3 years later — at which point Mindbody was generating over $100m in revenue (45% growth YoY). • I was the first UX Designer hired at Mindbody, and I led key redesign projects, helping build Mindbody into a $1b publicly traded company, including: - The redesign of the Point-of-Sale system, which processed $5.1 billion in payments in 2015. - The redesign of the award-winning consumer app (Apple’s “Best New Apps” for Jan 2016). - The redesign of the business-facing iOS and Android apps. • Increased consumer in-app bookings by 91% YoY and increased purchases by 141% YoY. • These apps served a combined total of over 50,000 small businesses (wellness, beauty and fitness) worldwide, and 28+ million consumers, which generated over $100+ million in revenue in 2015, a 45% increase YoY. I mentored, managed, and led numerous UX designers over this diverse set of successful projects. We worked closely with our in-house UX researchers and product teams to create informed designs based on qualitative and data-driven research. I led our team in the use of modern UX techniques, such as ethnographic research, design studios, design critiques, concept testing, usability testing, and design libraries. I had the opportunity to learn many of these techniques directly from Jared Spool over the course of a 2-year consulting engagement. While living in San Luis Obispo, I was an active member of the UX community and co-founded the SLO UX Meetup. ### UX Designer @ MINDBODY, Inc. Jan 2010 – Jan 2012 ### Co-Founder + Board Member @ SLO UX Jan 2013 – Jan 2016 | San Luis Obispo, California Area Co-Founder of San Luis Obispo County's UX meetup group, with over 350 members who range from Designers to Researchers to Developers. Our goal is to create an active network of UX professionals on the Central Coast, and to educate members on modern UX methods. ### Product Manager Intern @ Microsoft Jan 2008 – Jan 2008 Product Manager intern on the SharePoint team • Designed two new Web Parts: a mapping app and an event planning app • Created detailed design specifications and user experience documents for each Web Part ### Software Engineer @ California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo Jan 2005 – Jan 2008 | San Luis Obispo, California Area While working at PolySat, I wrote ground station software that communicated with Cal Poly's and the University of Tokyo's set of in-orbit satellites. I wrote BUS & Com updates for Cal Poly's CP6 satellite. CP6 was launched into space in May of 2009. ## Education ### W2017 Batch Y Combinator ### Software Engineering California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/csmeder - Portfolio: http://csmeder.com/ --- Source: https://flows.cv/christophersmeder JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/christophersmeder/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13