Renato Valdés-Olmos

A design leader who ships. Over 20 years I've built products, brands, and the teams behind them at Lyft, Grammarly, Honor, and my own startups. At GrowthX I worked as a forward-deployed design engineer, writing production code. I'm as comfortable directing a design org as I am closing the gaps marketing and engineering can't. Netherlands-based; remote for U.S. companies (EOR or contractor) or hybrid across Europe.

ScopeLed design, product management, and research orgs up to ~60 people, managing principal ICs through directors (up to Senior Director); teams representing roughly $20M in annual compensation, with operating budgets up to ~$1.5M.

Selected experience

GrowthX AI Founding Designer → Head of DesignSan Francisco (remote) · 2025

• Founding designer at an AI-native growth company; led design across product and brand, and hired the founding design team.
• Forward-deployed design engineer: shipped code directly to production for GrowthX's own product and for several of its largest customer accounts (customers include Reddit, Ramp, Webflow, Lovable, and Superhuman).

Noord Ventures Co-founder & InvestorAmsterdam · 2024

• Co-founder of an early-stage venture studio; I invest in companies and operate inside them on product, brand, and go-to-market.
• Founded and operate Oak & Velvet, building its brand and product end-to-end; drove product, brand, and positioning at Fitnesse (US) through its raise; led Antfarm's (NL) brand.

Peak Capital Entrepreneur in ResidenceAmsterdam · 2023

• Entrepreneur in Residence at the early-stage VC; advised on investment decisions and coached portfolio founders.
• Founded Peak Performers, a gathering series convening Amsterdam's high-agency product and design operating leaders, including leaders from Booking, Shopify, and others.

Pitch VP of ProductBerlin · 2022

• Led product and design at the $600M-valued Berlin presentation platform, a ~40-person org spanning core experience, AI, and growth.
• Ran ~6 PMs and ~25 product designers, a research team, and an 8-person brand and marketing design team (incl. motion).
• Introduced a qualitative-metrics framework improving conversion attribution with PM and data science/analytics; shipped session recordings and Pitch's first AI features.

Grammarly Head of DesignSan Francisco (remote) · 2020

• Built and led the design org, scaling the team from 5 to ~60 (staff and contractors), across an AI writing product used by 30M+ people daily as Grammarly expanded into enterprise (Grammarly Business) and reached a $13B valuation (2021).
• Drove a design strategy that moved Grammarly from a browser extension to an OS-native AI communication assistant, the foundation of the platform now known as Superhuman.

Lyft Senior Director, Product DesignSan Francisco · 2018

• Senior design leader for the core rider experience; led the redesign that turned Lyft from a ride-hailing app into a multimodal transportation platform (shared rides, bikes, scooters, transit, AV), and shipped the "Walk & Save" ride mode, ahead of Lyft's 2019 IPO.

Honor Founding Designer → Head of DesignSan Francisco · 2014

• Founding designer: developed the brand and first product prototypes in-house, then built and led a 20-person team spanning product design, brand design, design ops, and user research.
• Honor's brand became a real asset in fundraising and recruiting as the company raised $115M (Series A–C, incl. a16z), expanded across four states, and won Best New Startup (2016 Crunchies).

Andreessen Horowitz Design Advisor (GenD)San Francisco · 2016

• Coached portfolio founders and heads of design as part of a16z's design network (concurrent advisory).

Human Co-founder & CEOSan Francisco · 2012

• Co-founded and led design for an iOS activity tracker; Apple "Best of App Store 2014" and a Webby Award. Acquired by Mapbox, 2016.
• Users tracked 3M+ activities a day across 900 cities; created Human Cities, a data-visualization project (55M+ activities mapped) covered by 200+ outlets.

EarlierCardcloud, Founder & CEO, assets acquired by Moblio (2008) · Postmachina, Creative Director, design studio (2005) · Headland, Interaction Designer (2003) · Netherlands Cancer Institute, Interaction Designer in medical trial systems (2000).