# Francis Phan > Head of Design | AI + Agentic Product Strategy | Building Teams & Culture in Creative Tech Location: United States, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/francisphan I'm a design leader who builds organizations, sets AI product strategy, and ships work across every level, from vision frameworks to pixel-level creative direction. For the past three-plus years, I led Product Design at Splice as Senior Director, Head of Design. I grew and empowered a team from 4 to 12+ designers, recruiting senior talent from the likes of YouTube, Sonos, Native Instruments, and more. I helped define Splice's Agentic UX framework, the company's design principles for building AI enablements that afford producers and songwriters musical creative control. I also led the most comprehensive top-of-funnel redesign in Splice's history. I vibe code and make PRs in working codebases. I began my career as a C++ software developer, building the first-generation reverb plug-in for Cakewalk and working as an early developer at Harmonix Music on "The Axe," a precursor to the Rock Band video game phenomenon. I was also the founding CTO at SonicBids, where I helped develop the Electronic Press Kit (EPK). My innovation and technical mindset have earned me wins at hack competitions, including Boston's Music Hack Day and MIT's Semantic Web Hack Competition in the late 2000s. Before Splice, I was a Director of Product Design at Yahoo/Verizon Media, where I led design across a multi-billion dollar platform and managed a large portfolio of native ad formats at scale. My contributions are underscored by patents for interactive video and rendering algorithms. I hold a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and an MS in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University, where my graduate research focused on psychoacoustics, neural networks, digital signal processing, and speech recognition. Passionate about mentoring the next generation of product designers, I'm a founding industry adviser to Rutgers University Innovation Design Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA), which provides students with practical product and design thinking training. I've also served as lead and HBCU recruiter for the Yahoo Design Associate Program. In the music world, I made my impact as a producer in Boston's socially conscious music scene during the 2000s. I co-founded The Jugganautz and earned the New England Urban Music Awards "Producer of the Year," hosted by Berklee College of Music. My collaborations include notable artists like Iyeoka Okoawo, David Franz, Omega Red, Kishi Bashi, and Clinton Sparks. I'm currently working on a broad span of electronic music projects. ## Work Experience ### Senior Director, Head of Design @ Splice Jan 2022 – Present Leading Product Design for the platform that helps millions of music producers (from Grammy-winning to bedroom) find sounds, build instruments, and bring ideas to life. I joined as the design team's foundational leader and have shaped how Splice thinks about, staffs, and ships design. Grew the org from 4 to 12+ designers and researchers. Envisioned and led the most comprehensive top-of-funnel redesign in Splice's history. Helped author the Agentic UX vision, a principled framework for how AI-powered creative tools should serve creator intent. I vibe code and make PRs in working codebases. Hands-on creative and product design direction across DAW integrations, Sounds Plugin, INSTRUMENT, and emerging programs, informed by user research and active practice as a music producer. ### Director of Product Design - Ad Innovation @ Yahoo Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | San Jose, California, United States Product design owner for Native Advertising across Yahoo for an ad portfolio that generates over $100 million/yr in revenue across all of Yahoo's consumer-facing properties and third-party publisher partners. Co-lead for Yahoo's Design Associate Program, working to cultivate a culture of design excellence and inclusivity within the organization. Recruiter and mentor for DEIB and HBCU design candidates, promoting diversity and inclusion within the design team. Champion for AR and VR accessibility and best practices, striving to ensure that these technologies were inclusive and user-friendly for all users. Conducted research on mobile in-app gaming incentive tactics, identifying monetization patterns that inspired proposals for growth opportunities for subscription and commerce products. ### Director Of Product Design, Ad Innovation / Emerging Channels @ Verizon Media Jan 2017 – Jan 2021 | Sunnyvale, CA • Design strategist for native digital advertising across Verizon Media's portfolio of owner-operated sites. • Led team empowered to envision the next generation of editorial and ad experiences for desktop and mobile web, mobile app, OTT/CTV, and Digital Out of Home (DOOH). • Investigate how AR, IoT, computer vision, and 5G can be leveraged for immersive experiences and storytelling mediums for editorial and brand content. ### Director of UX Design @ Yahoo Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco • Design Lead for Brightroll Ad Exchange, the highest monetizing ad platform at Yahoo. • Drove future vision, supported product initiatives, and led research/design explorations spanning display, video, and native ad exchange ecosystems. • Strategized plan for design continuity among disparate products. • Recruited, mentored, and managed high-performance design talent. ### Senior Design Manager, Advertising UX @ Yahoo Jan 2012 – Jan 2016 | Sunnyvale CA • Managed design team for a portfolio of products ranging from Yahoo's B2B Demand Side Platform (DSP), audience data management, ad tech operations tooling, and creative ad format innovation for premium display, video, and native ad inventory. • Recipient of industry awards IAB Mobile Rising Star and Vivaki Tablet Lane for innovation in tablet-based ad format designs. • Awarded patents for interactive video and responsive design for ad creatives. ### Staff UX Design Prototyper @ Yahoo Jan 2010 – Jan 2012 | Sunnyvale CA • Lead HTML5/CSS3/JS developer for browser-based premium ad format experiences for Livestand, Yahoo's first iPad news application. • Authored best practices for micro-interactions and animations for the first-generation Apple iPad Safari browser. • Provided design and development support to Sales and Global Ad Agency partners for high spend premium ad executions. ### Freelance Mobile App Developer @ Sole Proprietor Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 | Boston MA • UI design and iOS app development for Tangoe mobility services and Grab Radio streaming radio service. • Developed parsing and display rendering engines for Poem Flow. • 1st place Award winner for MIT Linked Data Hack Competition in which Sir Tim Berners-Lee was a jury member. • Winner of Microsoft Boston Music Hack Day iPhone app category for streaming music app utilizing SoundCloud API. ### UX Architect @ Allurent Jan 2006 – Jan 2008 | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States • Developed rich internet applications and solutions for the e-commerce shopping lifecycle. • Front end development and prototyping in Adobe Flex/Actionscript 3 Developed web landing page applications for Borders Books and Alltel Wireless and apparel catalog application for Anthropologie ## Education ### MS in Biomedical Engineering Rutgers University ### BS in Electrical Engineering University of Connecticut ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/francisphan - Portfolio: http://www.francisphan.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/francisphan JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/francisphan/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13