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Jaleh Afshar

Director of Product Design at Meta; author of 'Chief Design Officers at Work'

ExecutiveLeads from the backOld schoolProductAIOrg
An executive design leader at a frontier AI company who pairs hands-on org leadership with a public, education-first mission to grow other design leaders — the people-protection axis in action.

Signature win. Led design for Facebook's privacy and community platforms (GDPR tools, Groups, Threads Communities) at billion-user scale while building the next generation through Stanford teaching and a CDO leadership book.

The case

editorial · CCBEI · with sources
CraftTwo decades shipping large-scale mobile, web, voice, and AR at Meta/Reddit (Facebook privacy/GDPR tools, Groups, Threads Communities); holds the bar across hard, ethics-sensitive surfaces.7
CommunicationAuthored 'Chief Design Officers at Work' (Apress, 2025) and speaks at Netflix, Disney+ and conferences on design systems, scale, and UX ethics — makes the case for design publicly.8
BusinessDirector leading multiple product teams on Facebook community platforms; her book's explicit thesis is design as a business driver, signaling outcome-oriented leadership.7
Education[Education recalibrated toward editorial baseline] Teaches AR at Stanford, runs workshops, and wrote a book amplifying CDO leaders' playbooks — a sustained people-elevating, knowledge-transfer track record.7
InnovationPioneers emerging surfaces (voice, AR) and teaches them; pushes practice forward via education rather than shedding craft, though direct AI-build evidence is thin.6

Endorsed by peers

illustrative · opens with verified accounts
OverallI'd work for them37
CraftRaised my craft bar37
CommunicationMade the case for design42
BusinessMade design matter to the business37
EducationTaught me something I still use37
InnovationShowed me a new way to work32

Verified peers only — one tap with LinkedIn. Names stay private; we show role and industry. Bars are illustrative until the participation backend is live.

Stories

first-hand · reviewed before publishing
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