João Mello

Leading experience strategy and design for DoorDash’s global in-venue merchant products across Wolt, DoorDash, and Deliveroo in ~45 countries. I set experience direction, drive 0→1 product initiatives from vision to delivery, and align regional teams around a unified in-venue experience strategy.

- Defined the vision, design principles, and design system for DoorDash’s in-venue product ecosystem (POS, Self-Service Kiosk, and In-store Ordering). Accelerated the POS launch to under 11 months, exceeding live venue targets by 40% and surpassing ~€1M GOV in record time. Shipped the Self-Service Kiosk from 0→1 in ~2 months, live with the first customer. The experience direction became DoorDash's global POS standard.

- Unified the Merchant App experience across Wolt, DoorDash, and Deliveroo, replacing three fragmented products with a single scalable experience for merchants operating across markets.

- Launched a dine-in commerce experience from 0→1 in ~3 months, unlocking a new growth vertical — helping venues fill tables and drive repeat visits across Wolt’s international markets.

- Established an AI-first design workflow enabling designers to ship production code, delivering 100% of roadmap commitments while expanding scope — the team shipped ~20 production PRs in Q4.

Led Product Design for Growth and Enterprise at Mentimeter, turning user research into product strategy, defining multi-year experience visions, and coaching designers to ship work that moved core business metrics.

- Uncovered a hidden collaboration need behind Mentimeter’s largest untapped lead pool (“multiuse”). Sponsored and guided a research initiative revealing a viral collaboration loop — directly shaping the company’s enterprise land-and-expand strategy.

- Defined and sequenced the product vision behind Mentimeter’s largest strategic bet (teams and collaboration). Delivered ~100k teams created, 30% activation (~50% above average), and a 20% self-serve upgrade conversion, laying the foundation for the company’s new pricing and packaging model.

- Turned the product into the primary landing engine for enterprise growth, enabling teams to form early, collaborate through shared spaces, and expand usage before sales engagement.

- Raised the design craft bar through hands-on coaching, design jams, and critiques, pushing designers to rethink experiences end-to-end and improving conversion across key growth flows.

- Led and developed a Product Design team, driving overall UX, core features, and visual language while fostering skill enhancement and career growth.

- Steer overall UX, core features, and visual language direction for the product.

- Streamline the product portfolio and guide business strategy using insights gathered from users, customers, and partners, while working closely with company leadership to develop a shared product vision and strategy.

- Build and integrate a robust design culture within Winningtemp, optimising people, processes, and tools and implementing team rituals to boost collaboration and cultivate design thinking skills.

I worked as a Product Design Manager at Nubank's Checking Account business unit. My responsibilities were to hire talent, develop people, and contribute to developing transformative services connected to Nubank's DNA.

- Launching WhatsApp Payments in Brazil.

- Launching Brazilian Central Bank's instant payment solution, PIX

- Manager and IC levelling and career ladder.

As the design team leader at Forza, I nurtured the designers' growth and career development through mentorship and collaboration. I researched and implemented best practices and standardized processes and aligned the team's workflow. By understanding the business objectives, I actively contributed to shaping the product strategy and assisted in making long-term decisions for the product team.

- Developed a long-term product vision and strategy.

- Build the design org and how the design team integrates within the company.

- Built Riquelme, Forza's Design System.

- Built the new player experience: the new profile, new data, and social features.

- Led Product Discovery for all the new products in the company

As a Design Leader in the accountancy tribe, I was responsible for providing and shaping the tribe's product vision with the help of my product and tech counterparts.

I was hiring and developing experienced Product Designers. I acted as a facilitator, guaranteeing our design process, research, and discoveries were all flawless while ensuring the teams followed the company's strategy. I reported directly to our Head of Design and our Board Directors.

- Led and shaped the accountancy domain design vision

- Helped to shape the accountancy domain product vision

- Led all the accountancy domain product discoveries

- Hired 20 designers growing the team from 10 to 30 people

- Created a free design Bootcamp to develop and hire junior talents

- Built and launched the first digital accounting software in Brazil

Being a growth leader is more than executing a growth strategy. Develop skills to manage your team, goals, and career.

As a growth leader, you know that growth varies from company to company. Tactics that work at one place won’t work at another. You can’t just hire people with experience in “growth” and expect them to create an all-star team. Instead, you need to orient your strategic decisions around your company’s growth motions. Learn what it means to organize and operate a team, manage growth goals, and plan your own career with growth motions as a guiding principle.

The d.MBA is a program for people who understand that design is more than aesthetics and users. This course teaches designers how to create and capture value for companies.

This program teaches designers about business through hands-on projects that take you through designing a business. The training provided theoretical knowledge and practical methods for Industry Analysis, Competitor Analysis, Business Strategies, Business Models, Business Strategies, Design Metrics, Business Metrics, and Prototyping with Numbers.

- 2017 The Developers Conference @Porto Alegre, Brazil

- 2018 Agile Trends Brasil @São Paulo, Brazil

- 2018 Agile Trends Governmental Edition @Brasilia, Brazil

- 2018 IxDA Campo Grande → Virtual monthly meet-up