Guannan LiDirector of Product Design & Management
Taste is
a business case.
I apply design thinking to drive strategy, build products people love, and grow the teams behind them — 0→1 to millions of users across education, payments, the creator economy, and AI.
Trajectory
2022 — Now
Director of Product Design & Growth
ablefy
2018 — 2022
Head of Product Design
Alef Education
2015 — 2017
Head of Product
Zhishinet
2014 — 2015
User Experience Designer
Samsung Electronics
Alongside
2019 — 2023
UX Instructor & Board Advisor
CareerFoundry
About
As a leader at the intersection of product design, product management, AI, and commercial strategy, I’ve taken products 0→1 to millions of users — across education, the creator economy, payments, B2B, B2C and AI-driven platforms.
I lead with craft and strategy: as comfortable shaping a product roadmap as I am in a design critique. The best products come from teams that feel safe to take risks, challenge assumptions, and care about the people they’re designing for.
Open to bold opportunities. Let’s connect.
At a Glance
- Craft
- End-to-end product design & development, vision to scale
- AI & Systems
- AI transformation and design-system leadership
- Stages
- International enterprise → high-growth scale-up → founding designer & PM
- Teams
- Cross-functional teams across 4 countries, consistently high satisfaction
- Range
- UX design, product management, research, strategy, go-to-market
- Culture
- Empathetic leadership, mentorship, design culture that sticks
Selected Work
ablefy2025–2026
0→1 Creator Community with AI-Native Team
Six channels of demand signal to a live product in one month — built by a team where designers shipped code, not just specs.
- Delivery velocity
- 6×
- CSAT
- +30%
Alef Education2022
Personalised Learning at 1.8M Scale
An AI platform that adapts to each student's pace across four subjects — and closed measurable learning gaps in Abu Dhabi's public schools.
- Exam performance
- +12.1%
- Students reached
- 1.8M
ablefy2025
Checkout, +6.47% Net Take Rate Increase
A three-arm A/B test across four checkout surfaces — express checkout, payment selector, pricing clarity, order summary — steering buyers toward higher-margin payment methods.
- EBITDA uplift
- €47K
- Sessions tested
- 790K
Alef Education2018–2021
K-12 Platform, Zero to a Million
Took Alef's core platform from concept to over a million students, turning classroom-only teaching into blended learning for teachers, students and guardians.
- Students, from zero
- 1M+
- Subjects launched
- 6
Alef Education2018–2021
A Design System With No Budget
Consolidated 35 colours and 238 font sizes into Alef's first shared component library — built by a volunteer guild assembled without a single allocated headcount.
- Design system at Alef
- 1st
- Dedicated headcount
- 0
Alef Education2018–2021
Research That Reset the Roadmap
30 teacher interviews and 15 classroom observations across UAE schools — replacing stakeholder assumptions with evidence that reprioritised the roadmap and fixed onboarding drop-off.
- Teacher interviews
- 30
- Schools visited
- 10+