Brendan Finlayson

Hi, I'm Brendan, A Multidisciplinary Design Leader.

Portland (Oregon) born, Oakland (California) based.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of product or brand design teams in many different industries during the last 20+ years, including a wide variety of in-house and agency teams.

As a designer, I’ve worked on a few big brand’s products and services like Nike+, NikeID, digital and real-world retail spaces; Jawbone’s first website; GoPro’s retail web, digital, and physical experiences; The North Face’s web and in-store shopping experiences; and Oakley’s Interactive product guides.

For the past seven years as a manager, I’ve grown and led in-house teams to build products, tools, processes, and overall design capabilities from varying levels of scratch.

I’ve worked to simplify some pretty big and complex ecosystems like Zume’s (and Zume Pizza’s) food production products, ordering apps, and semi-autonomous food trucks. I’ve also built teams around smaller experiences like Tend’s international banking app and, most recently, Guile’s booking app specifically for barbers and their clients.

top stuff I'm pretty good at

Design Leadership

Design Systems

Prototyping

User Research/Maps

UI/UX Design

Mobile/Web Apps

Visual Design

Design Hiring

Mentor & Growth

Team Management

Project Management

Product Development

Strategy Development

Creative Direction

B2C/B2B/B2B2C

Environment Design

Brand/Identity Design

Packaging Design

Photo & Video Direction

Storyboarding

Sound Design/Synthesis

Adobe Creative Suite

Figma

Google Suite

JIRA

Miro

Notion

Ableton Live

stuff I live by

Know your users, audiences, and business.
Curiosity doesn't always kill the cat.
How it works is just as valuable as how it looks.
Cultivate emotional safety.
Nurture Alignment.
Lead from behind and with a sense of humor.

Organizations I've MADE STUFF FOR

Recommendations from people who i've made stuff with

Alex Fallas
interaction design LEAD at google
Brendan is one of the most thoughtful, talented, and open leaders I had the pleasure to work with. When he hired me on, he made it clear that he wanted me to be able to grow into a design leader and made every effort to give me the tools I needed to be successful. Brendan has a serious talent for hiring a team that is impactful and high performing, while building a culture that is fun, inclusive, and highly positive. I always knew Brendan had my back on tough and high-profile decisions, having full trust in my expertise, while I trusted him as an industry veteran with a great vision for the team. Any company should be clamoring to have Brendan as a leader on their payroll and his impact will pay off in exponential amounts.
Roy Brubaker
director of design operations at joy
I spent much of my time at Zume picking Brendan's brain about his vision for the design organization there. He is an extremely well-articulated and thought-out individual. As the Design Program Manager, I knew immediately that I would not have a hard time convincing him of the benefits of adding structure to the design team. In fact, he had several presentations and confluence pages he had put together before I joined that closely reflected my own philosophy around how a design organization should be represented in a large or growing company. He's supportive of his team, and product owners and engineering leads can also trust his design leadership will be both cognizant of their processes in product development and, ultimately, the best direction for the user experience within the end product.
Erika von Kelsch
senior product designer at quicken
It’s rare to encounter someone as brilliant and supportive as Brendan. I worked with him for over 2 years at Zume, where he expertly guided my teammates and I through many diverse projects. Time after time I saw Brendan advocate for our team and our user’s experiences, always backed by thoughtful strategy. He’s an excellent communicator and leader, who delivers great outcomes in the face of uncertainty.

I attribute much of my development as a designer to Brendan. He continued to be a great mentor to me even as we ended up working in different locations with a growing team to manage. No matter how tense a critique or situation, Brendan always made sure we went forward with a smile and unified plan thanks to his calm disposition and humor. Anyone would be lucky to have Brendan as their manager or team leader!
Matt Fisher
senior manager - content design at thoughtspot
Brendan is a talented people manager with a great temperament and perspective for managing a creative team. He has an eye for identifying and hiring skilled people who work well with others, who contribute positively to the team dynamic, who are self-motivated and don't need a lot of hand holding. He does this quickly and under pressure and handles it with grace and without losing focus on his standards or his vision. The result is a happy team that comes to work ready for the day, every day. As a senior level team member, Brendan set me up for success clearing the path for me to develop the skills and explore the areas of work that interested me without burdening me with tangential projects and fire drills that could have derailed and demoralized me. Brendan is a strong leader and would be an asset to any organization that needs, talented design team to execute daily on a high level.
Roxanne Tomco
Content designER AT NETFLIX
I have had the pleasure of knowing and partnering with Brendan for over a decade now. Throughout various companies we both worked for, I’ve watched him grow as a designer, climb the ranks into managing and directing, and expand his design leadership expertise from visual and brand folks into product and industrial teams. To say he is equipped to lead and grow further is beyond an understatement — he could be your next CDO or founder.

I’m still using coaching advice Brendan gave me to help build bridges with stakeholders and upskill myself, which has paid off in the form of improved, sustained working relationships. His ethical foundation provided me and the rest of his teams the space to expand our impact, while showing the org by example that this was the right thing to do. He invested first in us and went to bat for our needs, and he always ends up with fiercely loyal teams and networks as a result.
Kai Takahashi
Product designer at watershed
Brendan was my manager for almost 3 years at Zume Pizza / Zume. Brendan did a great job of building a team of talented and passionate designers who made me happy to show up to work every day. At first, our design team was just us 2 running around designing software for food trucks and shooting special pizzas in a makeshift conference room studio. Within 2.5 years we were an organized team of about 25 across brand, product, and industrial design supporting a company of 600+ employees. As our team grew, Brendan dove into many different books on structure & process to figure out how best to support a rapidly growing company (spoiler alert, he's a big double diamond guy!).

Instead of being a domineering leader, Brendan would ask us what we needed from him and make sure to support us however he could. Through multiple rebrands with tight turnarounds, Brendan worked hard to make sure our team had as many resources (time, attention, space) as possible to do our best work. Most importantly, everyone on our team knew Brendan had our backs and would go to bat for us whenever it was needed. I always looked forward to our 1:1s, as I knew Brendan could always give me candid advice on whatever situation I was facing.