Skip to content
Built at Figma, a program to educate and up-level teams on design system fundamentals. Reached thousands of teams and tens of thousands of individual designers. Scaled across six languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, German, Korean, and FrenchFirst design advocate in APAC at Figma, educating the region’s leading design teams on design systems, product design, and development best practicesWorked directly with teams at Honda, Samsung, Hyundai, Singapore Airlines, DBS Bank, Recruit, CommBank, Grab, and others across APAC and globallySpoke at design conferences worldwide to audiences ranging from hundreds to over a hundred thousand on design culture, design maturity, and product strategyPartnered with Forbes Japan to publish an original featuring leaders from Meta, Lyft, Dropbox, and AdobeServed as CDO at Anamne, reporting directly to the CEO and overseeing all aspects of product development, strategy and design while architecting a growing ecosystem of telemedicine solutionsBuilt and led Figma’s APAC advocacy team from scratch, growing it into one of Figma’s highest performing teamsThe through-line across every role has been the same: building the leadership layer that makes design a strategic capability rather than a supporting functionActive speaker at design conferences worldwide, with audiences ranging from hundreds to over a hundred thousandEstablished voice in the global design community across APAC, with particular depth in Japan and Korea
Co-led the “” campaign at Figma, contributing to millions of dollars in influenced ARR, ranking among the highest performing content campaigns to date.Contributed to making APAC Figma’s fastest growing region, with the APAC marketing team recognized as the highest performing marketing team at Figma in 2025Influenced product strategy and go-to-market decisions for organizations across APAC by connecting design maturity to business outcomesLed GTM execution for Figma’s first-ever product localization in Japanese, and later in KoreanLed content strategy for Figma’s most impactful and highest performing events including Config APAC, Figma’s largest regional event at 1,200+ attendeesLed event strategy for Notion’s first two community events in Tokyo and KyotoDeep experience operating in both Japanese and English-language business contexts across APACAccelerated the growth of Figma’s TAM in APAC through programmatic strategy that championed the value of design in business and raised the average design maturity level of organizations across the region, resulting in more businesses investing in building design organizations and design tooling. Contributing to APAC being the fastest growing region in Figma’s business two years running (2024~2025)Influenced organizations across APAC into embracing design management, giving design a seat at the table, and investing in design as a strategic capabilityBuilt the GDP of Design framework: a model for understanding and growing the total economic value design creates across an organization or market
Web Designing magazine, 「デザインとストーリー」特集: 「ストーリーの作り方がみるみるわかる」Featured Projects 2024: 人を動かすストーリーデザイン: Effective Communication Through Story Driven PresentationsSpectrum Tokyo 2023: Designing for Designers / デザイナーのためになるデザイナーForbes Japan 2019-2020:
Moon Creative Lab (2024): Principles of Outcome-driven Strategy
Share
Explore
Fractional Design Leadership
Fractional Design Leadership
Corey Lee
Building design economies.
I help product companies build the leadership layer that makes design compound.
A lot of product companies reach a point where design is happening but not leading. Designers are shipping. The team is busy. But design isn’t connected to strategy, the culture isn’t there, and nobody’s sure how to change that.
That’s usually when I come in.
I work with companies as a fractional Head of Design, embedded in leadership meetings, product decisions, and cross-functional strategy. I set direction and stay involved until it’s built right. Part-time commitment, full involvement.
I. The Problem
Many organizations have design teams, but few have someone who understands business strategy well enough to identify where design can create real market outcomes. The gap isn’t usually in craft. It’s in the ability to see design as a strategic lever and know how to use it at that level.
Most teams are using design to improve how their product works or to create better market fit. That’s valuable. But while most designers are focused on designing products to fit a market, I design the market to fit the product. Used well, design can shape how the market thinks about your product entirely, shifting the dynamic from fitting an existing market to defining the terms of the market itself.
Knowing how to operate at that level requires someone who understands both design and business strategy, and can bridge the gap between leadership thinking and design execution.
I help businesses turn design into a durable competitive advantage by connecting design strategy to business outcomes, and building the organizational foundation that makes that connection sustainable over time.
How I think about this
I think about design in terms of its GDP: the total economic value design creates across an organization.
That value has three drivers: the number of practitioners actively engaged in design work, the maturity of how that work is executed, and the business outcomes design actually produces.
Most organizations focus almost entirely on the first driver. They hire more designers or invest in better ones, but don’t build the infrastructure for those designers to work effectively, and don’t measure whether the work is creating real business value.
Building a design economy means working across all three. It means building the leadership layer, the culture, and the systems that allow design to create measurable value at the business level, not just deliver good output.
II. Why Fractional
Experienced design leadership matters most when the stakes are highest: when the foundations are being laid, when the company is pivoting, when business-critical product decisions need to be made and there’s no senior design voice in the room.
Building those foundations well matters. Design culture, systems, and ways of working established early tend to compound over time. Getting them wrong creates technical and organizational debt that takes years to unwind.
It’s the right structure for moments of change.
A fractional design leader brings senior judgment when it creates the most leverage, without the time and cost of a full-time search. Most companies can’t wait six months to find the right hire. A fractional engagement gets senior leadership in place quickly, with the flexibility to scale as the business grows.
Fractional leaders develop talent.
A strong design leader raises the standard of everyone around them. They attract talented designers, identify high performers, and build the team’s capability over time through mentorship and clear direction. That development work continues to benefit the organization beyond the engagement itself.
The economics work differently.
A full-time design executive comes with a long recruiting cycle, salary, benefits, and equity. A fractional engagement delivers senior design leadership at a fraction of the total cost, without the overhead or the long-term commitment until you’re ready for it.
III. What I Build
Leading design organizations
Design maturity.
Building design maturity means creating the conditions for design to work effectively across an organization: shared culture, clear processes, cross-functional alignment, and a team that understands how design connects to business outcomes. I wrote the framework on this at Figma. It’s been used by design teams globally.
I built the Design Maturity Model: a four-level framework (Design Production → Systematic Design → XFN Design → Design Driven) that defines where an organization sits in its design practice and what it takes to move forward. The model measures maturity across four signals: governance, process, tools, and approach. I presented it at Config 2023, built accompanying worksheets and resources that were distributed globally, and used it as the foundation for design maturity education across APAC. It reached and influenced thousands of organizations worldwide.
Part of that work is developing the people. I build programs that raise the level of design teams, combining strong craft fundamentals with a better understanding of product strategy and business context. Designers who can operate across both tend to have significantly more influence inside their organizations.
Design as a business function.
Vision, principles, team structure, hiring systems, leveling, design operations. The infrastructure that makes design work well over time, not just in response to whatever’s next on the backlog.
Design leadership.
Providing senior design judgment at the leadership level: setting direction, making product decisions, and ensuring design is represented in the conversations where strategy gets made.
Leading with design strategy
Connecting design with business outcomes.
Design strategy is most valuable when it connects directly to commercial results. I work at the intersection of design and business, using design thinking to shape product direction, influence organizational decisions, and drive measurable growth.
Go-to-market strategy.
Taking a product into a new region or language involves more than translation. It requires understanding the market, positioning the product correctly, and making sure the product experience resonates with local users and business contexts. I’ve done this across multiple markets in Asia.
Market-shaping.
Some of the most impactful design work happens outside the product itself. Shaping how a market thinks about the product, what organizations are willing to invest in, and what the industry collectively values creates the conditions for greater product adoption — not only through increased market share but by increasing the size of the market itself. I’ve done this through a combination of product strategy, community strategy, content, and advocacy.
IV. How We Work Together
Every engagement starts with a mission. Before we discuss format or time commitment, we agree on what needs to be achieved: what design needs to do for the business, what the team needs to be capable of, and what success looks like over the next six to twelve months.
From there, we find the engagement structure that fits. The formats below are starting points, not fixed packages. The mission shapes the model.
Strategic
Weekly direction-setting, async design reviews, and roadmap input. For organizations with an existing design team that needs senior judgment at the leadership level.
Best for: Companies that have designers but no design executive.
Embedded
1 to 2 days a week, inside your sprints, leadership meetings, and product decisions. I set direction and work alongside your team.
Best for: Growth-stage companies building the design function from scratch, or teams at a design inflection point.
Scoped
A focused engagement around one specific challenge: a design maturity audit, an APAC market entry, a design culture workshop, or building the hiring system for your first design team.
Best for: Enterprise organizations with a defined strategic challenge, or companies that want to start focused before going deeper.
V. Background
15 years designing products and building design organizations.
Figma, Designer Advocate, APAC (2022~2025)
First advocate and marketing hire in APAC. Employee #3 in Japan. I spent three years growing Figma’s presence across Asia-Pacific by raising the design maturity of the market: educating organizations, building community, and making the case for design as a business capability. APAC became Figma’s fastest growing region. The APAC marketing team was recognized as Figma’s highest performing.
Anamne, Chief Design Officer (2020~2022)
Reported to the CEO. Led all product strategy and design for a healthcare technology company in Tokyo. Integrated multiple fragmented telemedicine products into a cohesive platform and defined the brand strategy and design system that held it together.
The Collective, Founder (2018~2022/2026~)
Design studio specializing in early-stage product strategy, design systems, and brand identity. Partnered with Forbes Japan to publish an original Design Operations series featuring leaders from Meta, Lyft, Dropbox, and Adobe.
Teaching and Community
Taught Methods I: Design Strategy at Advanced Design’s Offsite program. Mentors design founders on how to scale their practice. Writes and builds community around design leadership. Runs The Designer MBA, a coaching platform for freelance designers and small agencies.
Recognition
Good Design Award, Japan Design Promotion Organization. Spoken at design conferences globally to audiences ranging from hundreds to over a hundred thousand on design culture, design maturity, and product strategy.
Fluent in Japanese and English. Experience leading design teams in both languages.
VI. Organizations I’ve Worked With
Honda, Samsung, Hyundai, Singapore Airlines, DBS Bank, Recruit, CommBank, Grab, Morgan Stanley, Baemin, LG, JAL, and others across APAC and globally.
VII. Speaking & Publications
VIII. Teaching
IX. Let’s Talk
If your team has designers but design isn’t leading, let’s talk.
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ··· in the right corner or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.