# Leonardo De La Rocha > Dad, Mental Health Champion, Mentor, Design leader, and Advisor. VP of Design at SimplePractice. Ex-Spotify, Intuit, Facebook, and Yahoo! Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/leonardodelarocha I’ve spent twenty years building design teams at places like Intuit, Facebook, Spotify, and Yahoo!, and a handful of scrappy startups in between. The through-line has always been the same: figuring out how to make complex products feel simple, and helping the people building them do their best work. I care most about the moments where design actually changes something, where a team gets unstuck, where a product starts to feel like it was made for a real human being. That’s the work I keep coming back to, whether I’m heads-down in a design review or working alongside a team that’s trying to find its footing. I’m at my best when there’s a big, messy problem on the table and a group of smart people who want to solve it well. I bring a lot of energy to that, and I try to leave teams in a better place than I found them. ## Work Experience ### Vice President, Design @ SimplePractice Jan 2023 – Present | San Jose, California, United States SimplePractice is an all-in-one practice management solution that simplifies the health and wellness experience for practitioners and patients. With SimplePractice’s EHR software, practitioners can manage patient care in one central platform, including services like telehealth, online booking, customizable documentation and autopay. Over 225,000 practitioners use SimplePractice to provide quality, HIPAA-compliant care and grow their practices. ### Strategic Advisor @ neo.tax Jan 2019 – Present | Mountain View, California, United States Advisory role focused on customer experience and communication design for Silicon Valley based fintech startup. ### Global Head of Design (Sr.Director), Advertising @ Spotify Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | San Jose, California, United States ### Director, Intuit Design @ Intuit Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | Mountain View, CA Working across Intuit to create and ensure a One Intuit Design System. Leonardo is currently driving a company-wide design system strategy, has defined the vision and developed an action plan that delivers on a One Intuit Design System for all of our cornerstone brands including TurboTax, QuickBooks, ProConnect, and Mint. ### Creative Director, Facebook Art Dept. @ Facebook Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Menlo Park, California ### Creative Lead, Facebook Business Marketing @ Facebook Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Menlo Park, CA As a creative lead for Business Marketing at Facebook, Leonardo managed a team of designers and copywriters who help craft compelling narratives around Facebook's family of apps and services to marketers and advertisers, big and small. Focused on Facebook's digital marketing surfaces, Leonardo has helped impact Facebook's Ad Product traffic and revenue metrics through forward thinking creative rooted in data. facebook.com/business ### Product Design Manager, Facebook Business Products @ Facebook Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | Menlo Park, CA Leonardo began his stint at Facebook leading multiple product design teams that helped power Facebook's rapidly evolving advertising platform. Dubbed the "Outcomes" team, Leonardo drove efforts to bring clarity to Facebook's more complex tools -- from ad targeting and ad delivery mechanisms to campaign Reporting and Measurement. His organization also inherited the oversight of Facebook's Business Design standards, evolving what was at first a skunkworks effort to drive better, more consistent experiences to a full-blown XFN team with engineering support that helped scale design standards globally. ### Head of Design, Yahoo Advertising & Data @ Yahoo! Inc. Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | Sunnyvale, CA I started in the Advertising and Data organization as the primary UX resource for the ground-up development of Yahoo's first self-serve, native advertising platform (Gemini). After a successful 45-day war room for launch and numerous wins thereafter, I built a core team of designers to maintain the Gemini product and transitioned to oversee UX for all of Yahoo's ads and data products. There, I built and led a remarkable team of 20 design and dev resources to: · Redefine a disparate pattern library, creating the perception of a modern and unified product suite · Develop standards and principles for ongoing iteration and innovation against our design language · Create venues for global design sharing and critiques to better connect Yahoo designers, de-duping efforts, and create overt accountability for high-quality design · Advocate for better/faster deployment through a centralized design system by way of Ember app kit + Bootstrap theme · Strengthen research-guided design process through close collaboration with Yahoo researchers In addition to my primary charter, I served on Yahoo's global design council. Our aim: provide the best resources for design success, and create environments where stellar design thinking thrives. Most recently, this service extended into helping my design leadership cohorts pull together our strongest designers to create a single, consistent (yet flexible) design system that raised the bar of excellence across Yahoo products. ### Director of UX, Yahoo Publishing @ Yahoo! Inc. Jan 2010 – Jan 2013 | Denver, CO As Director of User Experience Design for Publishing at Yahoo! I oversaw UI & Interaction Design, front-end development, and all aspects of user experience for Yahoo!'s global suite of publishing tools. My charter was to design, build, and maintain tools that allow Yahoo!'s international team of editors to quickly program content across myriad O&O destinations and create amazing content experiences for a daily audience of over 700 million. My approach to Yahoo!'s large scale publishing was to create editorial processes that leverage metrics to inform more effective content programming -- where revenue, shelf-life, and audience reach are maximized. I also constantly strive to combine beautiful aesthetics with intuitive functionality to ensure both internal and consumer facing publishing experiences are as delightful as they are easy. My skills have matured over 12 years while creating intuitive design experiences around content creation, aggregation, and consumption on both enterprise level publishing platforms and niche, home-grown content management systems which I've architected from the ground up. At Yahoo!, this experience -- coupled with my passion for effective visual and interaction design -- has helped me create and lead a cross-disciplined team to redesign and rebuild Yahoo!'s disparate, siloed, legacy publishing tools into a single, scaleable publishing platform. On top of our many publishing specific wins, I also led my team across boundaries to deliver amazing design solutions outside of our wheelhouse. Recent examples include contributions to Yahoo!'s global design language and future-thinking global navigation system, Yahoo!'s Fantasy Football applications for iPhone, iPad and Android, the Yahoo! Local experience, and interactive, content-rich ad units delivered across the Y! network. ### Advisor @ Art Institute of Colorado Alumni Board Jan 2009 – Jan 2011 | Denver, CO Services included organizing projects and events that aimed to enrich the lives of AiC Alumni and promotes The Art Institutes’ mission of being the leading educator in the creative arts through our recognition of alumni success and career focused approach. Responsibilities also included advisement around strengthening curriculum with cutting edge design technologies and modern design practices. I continue to assist alumni by attending portfolio reviews and industry consulting sessions. ### Head of User Experience @ Associated Content, Inc. (Purchased by Yahoo!) Jan 2007 – Jan 2010 | Denver, CO Oversee Associated Content's creative vision and all aspects of print and web design projects relating to the brand. This includes AC’s front-end website designs, (associatedcotnent.com, partner.associatedcontent.com, etc.) UI/UX designs, B2B decks, conference signage, marketing/PR materials, etc. As AC’s creative lead, I’ve helped developed relationships with many agencies representing tier 1 brands and have successfully managed my creative resources from concept to completion of the projects demonstrating strong leadership. ### Member @ CSIA Jan 2006 – Jan 2010 Founded in 1994, the Colorado Technology Association is a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the technology industry. Our mission is to foster growth and opportunity for the technology industry by: - Engaging and unifying stakeholders to build a strong collective voice to policy makers - Driving influential leadership in critical areas: job creation, economic development, innovation - Leveraging insights and trends to help businesses optimally perform in a global marketplace - Ensuring Colorado’s technology companies are recognized for their leadership and innovation ### Advisor @ Denver Botanic Gardens Jan 2007 – Jan 2009 | Denver, CO One of the original seven volunteers for Denver Botanic Gardens Technology Task Force. Completed the first roadmap of the website overhaul for the organization in 2007, which resulted in being one of the top five most visited websites for the botanic gardens industry today with over 3 million page views annually. Worked on the virtual herbarium project with the horticultural staff on virtualizing the herbarium to an online database through an IMLS grant. Helped with design efforts on the new science pyramid building to show off an interactive display of the steppe climate regions around the world. Contributed over 1,000 volunteer hours since 2007. ### Co-founder / Design+Dev lead @ Associated Content, Inc. Jan 2004 – Jan 2007 Managed product roll-outs, software versioning, platform migration and developed solid business partnerships that assisted the launch of AssociatedContent.com. Continually acquired critical experience and skills that allowed for the following key accomplishments: Developed a custom publishing platform allowing for web and wireless publication of user-generated content. Assisted in the development of Associated Content's Yield Management System - a homegrown analytic tool used to automatically (1) select optimal ad partners; (2) predict content shelf life; (3) estimate ROI on any content acquisitions; (4) dynamically generate optimal "meta" data for published web content and (5) organize and publish seasonal content. (Patent pending) Emerging technology analysis: For finding innovate ways to deliver content via web and wireless devices. Viral marketing techniques: For boosting page views, content submissions and user registrations. Effective SEO on text, image, audio and video content for increased discoverability on the web and effectively monetizing content libraries. Advanced functionality analysis of online products: Allowing for the roll-out of "sticky" user interfaces leading to effectively increasing click-through rates on both advertisements and related inventory. Content syndication: Used to maximize web presence with custom feeds for both third-party sites and vertical domains. ### Application Architect @ Scripps Howard News Service Jan 2004 – Jan 2004 My work included the design and implementation of a “calendar application”. The framework built is now used by all 18 Scripps Howard Newspaper sites as well as FineLiving.com, FoodNetwork.com and HGTV.com. My responsibilities also included the construction and maintenance of a content management system using TCL/TK (Oracle DB), and the design of a GUI using Vignette, Flash MX, Perl and JavaScript. ### Web Developer/Designer @ Rocky Mountain News Jan 2000 – Jan 2004 “Leonardo is central to the maintenance and development of the Rocky’s Web site. He has met every challenge we’ve given him. He has been quick to pick up on journalism style and practice. He juggles several different projects at any given time. He is always cooperative with the staff. And he is always abreast of the latest industry trends and eager to learn new technology. Leonardo has taken the lead in maintaining and improving our site’s interactive applications. Most notably over the past two years, Leonardo has helped in the development of our election, Rocky Preps, Nightlife and census applications.” – Mike Noe, Internet News Editor ## Education ### BA in Design Management, Major studies in Graphic Design and Interactive Media Design. Minor studies in Consumer Behavior. Art Institute of Colorado ### Design Management in Graphic Arts, Studies in Computer Science University of Colorado Boulder ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/delarocha - Portfolio: http://delarocha.myportfolio.com/ - Portfolio: https://delarocha.substack.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/leonardodelarocha JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/leonardodelarocha/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13