Hello! I'm Alaa Mendili, Head of Product and Design at Mirror.

Over the past two decades, I've driven innovation and creative excellence. As a hands-on leader I've held key roles across design, product, engineering, and marketing building category-disrupting consumer products.

Currently at Mirror, I own a suite of products that help creators turn their audiences into active communities and stakeholders. My experience also includes building a product design team from the ground up at Dapper Labs, cofounding and bootstrapping the fitness platform Dance Church, developing bold new shopping experiences for Amazon's Concept Lab, and providing fractional leadership to startups in AI, Web3, and more. Earlier on, I spent several years leading teams at agencies in Stockholm, Montréal, New York, and Seattle.

Over the course of my career, I have worn many hats working across a breadth of verticals, for companies of diverse sizes—from early-stage startups to big corporations. Below is a summary of my expertise.

Product Design and Strategy

Product design has been at the center of my career for many years. I'm a player-coach design leader, who values creative rigor, with a process rooted in research and experimentation. As a practicing designer who can code, I manage and lead by example to drive creative excellence and inspire my team. My experience includes: defining vision; implementing design thinking processes and best practices; conducting research and usability testing; defining flows, architectures, and wireframes; designing and prototyping products; and developing scalable design systems.

Innovation and Future Vision

One of my superpowers is my ability to move seamlessly from big thinking and strategy to execution and iteration. Having taken numerous projects from 0 to 1, I bring a wealth of expertise in leading greenfield innovation, from co-founding startups to advising several early-stage companies on their product strategy. Additionally, I led design at Amazon's Concept Lab, a team that defines future opportunities and big bets at Amazon, typically looking 3 to 5 years ahead.

Storytelling and Experience Design

I have a holistic approach to design, rooted in the idea that stories connect people. I leverage my experience with brand, marketing, content, events, and visual design to deliver products that are intuitive and impactful, in ways that support people and communities and enhance their every day.