Lara Mendonça is a designer, educator and amateur philosopher.

With a career of 12 years, her experience ranges from product, interaction and brand identity to print, motion design, advertising and illustration.

She has previously worked at Tumblr, Twitter, Bumble, Wise, HSBC, Mitsubishi, Sky & Globosat. She also co-founded Mischief Studio (R.I.P).
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She holds a Master of Arts from the London College of Communication of the University of the Arts London — with Honors.

These days, she leads design at a stealth startup. She lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Tumblr

Vice-President, Labs / Design Director

2022 • 2023

She worked with the rest of the executive leadership team to bring Tumblr's strategy to life. She focused on leading the team while fostering a healthy culture, elevating design's influence, building a long-term vision and improving operations.

Twitter

Senior Manager, Product Design

2021 • 2022

She led design teams working on profiles and conversations on the platform, working to improve user safety and self-expression. Notable projects include Twitter Circles, improved reply controls, tweet downvoting and new verification flows.

Bumble

Head of Product Design

2019 • 2021

She established and led a diverse and high-performing team of user researchers, product and content designers—scaling from 1 to 15 members. During her tenure, design became an efficient strategic partner, culminating on a redesign of the product and “contributing to a wildly successful IPO” (Fast Company).