Ecommerce Executive Stacy All Joins Wish as VP of Product Design

Wish is excited to announce that Stacy All joined us as our new VP of Design in June. Stacy has more than 20 years of experience in customer-centered design and user experience, which includes leading initiatives at SurveyMonkey (now Momentive,) Walmart eCommerce, Yahoo, and NEC. With an incredible track record for creating delightful and easy shopping experiences, she is a strong leader who will oversee Wish’s efforts in designing the next generation of inspirational, visual, and discovery-led commerce. She currently manages a growing team of almost 30 Wishians and is hiring. Here, we spoke with Stacy to learn more about her background, how she plans to strengthen the consumer and merchant experiences through design, her sources of creative inspiration, and of course, fun hobbies.

What brought you to Wish?
A few things really drew me. First, I am a shopper and I love discovering treasures or scoring a great deal, so I enjoy thinking about how to make shopping better! Secondly, I’ve worked for both a value brand ecommerce company and a social shopping start-up, which gives me a great foundation to better understand the Wish experience. Finally, I spent part of my career as a researcher, studying how people search and find things, so Wish’s focus on helping consumers discover products more easily is very interesting to me as well.

Can you tell us about your role? What do you hope to accomplish?
My role is VP of Design, and my team includes designers and content strategists. I feel lucky to lead both disciplines that contribute to making quality experiences for our customers and merchants. I’m new so I want to find out how to best support the team and the business. An important initial focus is strengthening the Design discipline, especially with bringing together design and content on the team. Design is a strategic discipline for any organization, and I want to support my team in filling their seat at the table. And, as a discipline leader, I take the team’s professional development seriously. I will focus on building clear career paths for writers and designers at Wish, and supporting them in evolving skills that help them be successful.

What excites you most about the year ahead?
I’ve landed at a moment when ecommerce businesses turn their focus to holiday shopping, so it’s a perfect time to see how the experience improvements, along with new merchandising elements, make holiday shopping better. We’ve also recently released a new brand identity, and I’m excited to further infuse our apps and website with this fresh look, so we can signal in many ways how we are improving Wish.

What is your favorite part about product design?
My favorite part of design is taking our understanding of customers’ needs and solving for them — really being of service to the people that fuel our business. I’ve been a designer and a researcher, so I strongly believe that good experiences flow from deep customer understanding. While it’s a bit “on the nose,” a touchstone for me is Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. What they communicate to me is that good design is about thoughtful balance; it’s useful, aesthetically pleasing, clear, innovative, and just enough to get things done. Product design is a challenge to do well.

How do you stay creative? What are some of your favorite sources of inspiration?
I think inspiration can come from anywhere, and often when you aren’t looking for it. What kinds of things fuel my creative engine? One way is just by making something. Whether that’s sketching a landscape, cooking an amazing meal, or framing up a photograph, connecting to the physical process of making can get good energy flowing for me. I also get inspired by seeing the world through someone else’s perspective, whether it’s viewing the paintings of Rothko, reading the essays of Samantha Irby, or traveling to a city I’ve never visited before. How others see the world gives me a new way of seeing my own opportunities and challenges. I’ve also been looking at how the team at Wish approaches our design challenges, which has been inspiring me, too!

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned in your career thus far?
Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Defining the right problem to solve is key. The solution must serve that problem.

What are your favorite hobbies to do outside of work?
Anyone who knows me would call me a serious movie nerd, and during the pandemic, I indulged in way too many streaming services to feed me. I love storytelling of all kinds so movies and books are a refuge for me. I also love to cook/bake, play strategy games, and visit museums. I have an art history degree so all kinds of art and making fascinate me, from cave paintings to Banksy, I love seeing what people make to represent their ideas, dreams, and culture. Also, I’m suffering from real deprivation from not being able to travel during the pandemic. I miss visiting new places (part of my sources of inspiration!) and daydream about my last trips to Italy. In addition, while not a hobby, I also love to spend time with my two furry home office mates/benevolent overlords, my cats Cream and Sugar.

How many staff members do you oversee? How do you keep your team motivated?
My team covers all our surfaces — consumer and merchant. The team will soon be around 30. One of my goals is to strengthen our design team. This team has invested in developing the design culture and guiding principles, and I want to continue and amplify that work. I also have a clear focus on team dynamics and improving relationships between design and other groups. Design can be an imagination engine for companies as well, so creating space for envisioning the future of discovery shopping is something that I want to engage the team in. Ultimately, we all want to build experiences that delight customers and impact the business, so connecting the team to seeing data and measuring their impact can be really motivating, too.

Is your department hiring? What are some skills your team looks for when making hiring decisions for your department?
We are hiring! I have roles at various levels, across different disciplines. In particular I’m actively looking for a manager for the merchant & logistics side of the business. We’re looking for product designers (various levels) and writers. We’re also looking for a few contractors, too!

Interested in joining Wish? Discover open opportunities here.