Design Director Midlothian, Virginia

Hi, I’m Lawrence. I build teams that do their best work. I ship design that moves metrics. I go to the woods to recharge.

Meta · Capital One · Saatchi & Saatchi · DATA/One Campaign — 20 years of experience

selected work.

01 — the index
  • Facebook’s core creator dashboard, redesigned from the ground up. I ran the work as both design lead and PM, taking a team of six product designers and two UX researchers through a six-month delivery cycle while the org braced for regressions.

    It shipped with every success metric positive: +3% daily and +7% weekly active users on a surface used by millions of creators.

    +3% / +7%DAU / WAU at launch
    6 + 2designers & researchers led
    6 moconcept to ship
  • The platform roadmap had five teams investing in a third-party surface while the product creators actually needed was slated for removal. I made the strategic case to reverse it, redirecting all five teams toward ProDash Web.

    Launched June 2025 at feature parity or better against TikTok Studio, driving a +17.6% lift in Web Creator DAU.

    +17.6%web creator dau
    5teams redirected
    ≥ parityvs. TikTok Studio
  • I established the first AI-focused design workgroup inside the Creators org, a v-team of six formed roughly a year before broader Facebook design adoption, and authored the Creator AI Design Principles that senior leadership aligned behind.

    Alongside it: a design intake and quality-gate process that raised the bar on what reached designers, worth a 22% gain in team efficiency.

    1 yrahead of org adoption
    +22%team efficiency
  • A new guidance strategy for creators, authored and shipped. As the team’s product design manager I led the design strategy and oversaw the execution. It beat adoption goals by 4–6× and retention goals by .

    4–6×vs. adoption goal
    vs. retention goal
  • Eight years, three promotions, each into a role that didn’t previously exist. I drove the design lens on Capital One’s “smart friction” strategy: authentication that stays invisible during low-risk sessions and surfaces only when risk elevates.

    Introduced behavioral biometrics and emerging authentication to the bank, contributing to an identity platform that drove over $700M in incremental revenue, plus a network device fingerprinting patent awarded in the US and EU.

    $700M+incremental revenue
    18designers, 3 teams
    US + EUpatent awarded
  • Capital One’s push authentication shipped ahead of nearly every major tech company: a first-of-its-kind product that has since become universal practice.

    Tap to Verify followed: hardware-backed verification built on Presto chip-card technology, turning the card itself into the credential.

    1stof its kind at scale
    → standardindustry practice today
  • Digital production lead for Toyota, the campaign that taught me what craft under pressure looks like: the Tundra that towed the Space Shuttle Endeavour, shipped on deadline.

    2012the shuttle tow
  • First chapter. I managed, designed, and built all web content for DATA.org and ONE.org, including every piece of US online content for Live 8, at the time the most-watched live event in world history.

    Worked alongside world leaders on the campaign; the team was awarded the Liberty Medal in 2007.

    Live 8all us web content
    2007liberty medal

side projects.

02 — on my own time
  • DesignLeaderJobs

    designleaderjobs.com ↗

    A curated, SEO-first job board for design-leadership roles: researched, designed, built, and run solo.

    stack : astro · cloudflare

  • Bambu print-prep MCP

    github ↗

    A local-first MCP server that lets Claude cut, scale, and repair 3D models, then hand them straight to the printer.

    stack : python · mcp

  • Pipeline skills for Claude Code

    github ↗

    Gated engineering and marketing pipelines: idea to ship with a stop at every gate, and an anti-slop review built in.

    stack : claude code · cto + cmo

  • PD2PM

    public at v1

    A free course platform helping product designers close the gap with product managers, with AI as the leverage.

    stack : next.js · ai · pd2pm.com

built solo, after hours · the rest lives at github.com/laltaffer ↗

the road here.

04 — the map
2026Midlothian, VA

The next chapter

AI-native product leadership, practiced in the open, actively looking for problems to solve and teams to join.

2022Richmond, VA

Meta — Senior Product Design Manager

Many teams, one through-line: org design as a craft. Teams of 9 to 16 reshaped to fit the work as platforms pivoted and AI arrived, with product strategies that are shipped product today. Last stop: the Creators org.

2014Richmond, VA

Capital One — Senior Design Director, Identity & Commerce

Manager → senior manager → director → senior director, each a role that didn't exist until it earned its place. Security UX rethought as invisible identity; 18 designers across iOS, Android, and web.

2009Los Angeles, CA

Saatchi & Saatchi LA — Creative Tech Lead

Toyota's digital flagship, and the discipline of shipping craft on deadline, every time.

2005Washington, DC

DATA/One Campaign — Web Lead

Hand-coding for a cause, as a team of one: every page designed and built solo. Live 8, ONE.org, a Liberty Medal, and work that went into the hands of G8 leaders.

my story.

05 — from virginia

Good work is builtto stand, to weather,and to stay useful.

Making things for the web since 2001: hand-coded first, design-led always. That belief was on my first portfolio site, and it hasn’t changed.

My first chapter was a small but mighty nonprofit trying to move the world. At DATA and the ONE Campaign I was a team of one, designing and building every page of a global advocacy machine, work that ended up in front of G8 leaders and, with Live 8, most of the watching world. I learned early that a small team and a well-made web page can carry global stakes.

Advertising came next. At Saatchi & Saatchi LA I led creative tech on Toyota’s flagship digital work, and learned what craft under pressure looks like: the deadline holds, and so does the quality.

Then eight years at Capital One, in four roles that did not exist before I held them. The work was making bank-grade security feel like nothing at all, and the identity platform behind it drove over $700M in new revenue. Big banking taught me to build teams inside a giant, and to justify every new role by what it shipped.

Meta was big tech at full speed: many teams, constant pivots, and org design practiced as a craft of its own. When AI arrived I didn’t wait for the wave; I founded the Creators org’s first AI design workgroup a year ahead of it. I’m an AI-native practitioner with a technologist’s mindset, the manager who still opens the inspector.

Through all of it, the way I lead hasn’t changed. I build trust, I stay hands-on enough to take the reins when that’s what moves the work, and I keep bringing large organizations new ways of working that meet their goals with fewer resources, inside cultures where people do the best work of their careers.

A small nonprofit with global reach, big advertising, big banking, big tech: each room asked a different question of the work. Answering them is the preparation for whatever comes next. Home is still Virginia, with my family.

vcu communication arts · ideo u
— lawrence · midlothian, virginia

email laltaffer@gmail.com linkedin /in/lawrencealtaffer github /laltaffer
currently Open to Director & Senior Director design leadership