LinkedIn / 2024
Global Vision
I worked directly with LinkedIn's Head of Design to explore what a globally oriented yet hyper-local LinkedIn could look like through Fernanda Lopes's career journey.
Role
Principal Designer · Vision Lead
Why it mattered in the deck
In the original deck, Global Vision was the strategic counterweight to Games. It proved that I can lead with synthesis, framing, and storytelling rather than only detailed interaction craft.
Context
This was not a narrowly scoped feature project. It was a broad cross-consumer vision effort with research, market nuance, and leadership alignment built into the work from day one.
Challenge
Turn a large, abstract product question into something concrete enough for leadership to feel, critique, and potentially adopt, while staying grounded in real user and market conditions.
Role and scope
Co-led a one-week workshop with UXR and Growth leads.
Worked as the solo designer during execution after the workshop.
Created prototypes, concept storytelling, and leadership-facing materials.
Supporting materials from the original deck
Character building kit
Workshop artifact that translated research and operational context into design-ready characters.
Fernanda Lopes persona
The main anchor persona used to make market nuance concrete inside the concept work.
Six-storyline concept deck
A set of chaptered hero slides and prototypes covering WhatsApp Integration, Mentorship Program, In-person Event & LinkedIn Badge, LinkedIn Learning within Flagship, Video Profile, and Gig Marketplace.
Video profile concept
A flagship exploration inside the deck that reframed profile self-expression through video for a more globally expressive audience.
Native iOS prototype and concept video
Experience artifacts used to help leadership feel the direction rather than only review screenshots.
Process
Start with shared understanding
The project opened with a focused workshop that pulled in lightning talks and a character-building kit from UXR, Marketing, Biz Ops, and Customer Support so the team could align on the problem space quickly.
Ground the concept in a real persona
Instead of talking about 'international users' abstractly, I centered the work on Fernanda Lopes, a character from Brazil whose goals, constraints, and modes of expression helped the team reason about concrete product tradeoffs.
Prototype the future end to end
I developed six end-to-end concept tracks around Fernanda's career arc: WhatsApp Integration, Mentorship Program, In-person Event & LinkedIn Badge, LinkedIn Learning within Flagship, Video Profile, and Gig Marketplace.
Use storytelling to accelerate alignment
I paired prototypes with concept videos and a native iOS build so stakeholders could experience the idea instead of only hearing about it. The deck's 'Trying is better than seeing' line captures that principle directly.
Design Decisions
Use one strong character instead of generic segments
A specific character made the vision more legible and prevented the work from collapsing into broad, abstract statements about growth markets.
Treat storytelling as a design tool
Midjourney, Runway, and prototype video were not decorative. They compressed the distance between strategy and felt experience so leadership could react to a future state with more precision.
Build for direct experience on device
The native iOS prototype let stakeholders try the concept on their own phones, which created a different level of conviction than slides alone could provide.
Outcomes
6 scenario tracks
The deck mapped a full journey rather than a single hero concept: WhatsApp Integration, Mentorship Program, In-person Event & LinkedIn Badge, LinkedIn Learning within Flagship, Video Profile, and Gig Marketplace.
Leadership uptake
The hero slides in the deck show multiple concepts moving toward real follow-through, including Video Profile being sized as a Premium-carousel MVP and Gig Marketplace being conducted as a Next project.
Cross-functional alignment
The workshop and story artifacts created shared language across research, growth, design, and adjacent pillars around what 'globally oriented but hyper-local' could mean in product terms.
In the original deck, Global Vision carried the strategy half of the story: framing ambiguity, building conviction, and using storytelling to influence direction.