Chris Whalen

Peer to the Head of Product. Reports to the EVP of Experience.

• Lead six senior product designers and a design system lead across web, mobile, and TV. Hired six of seven; the team has remained stable since 2023.
• Built the team's operating model: senior hiring standards, onboarding that gets most designers to a first PR in week one, peer and team reviews, monthly coaching, and goal-based performance reviews. Introduced Junior-to-Senior Weeks, when I work under one of my designers.
• Established direct cross-functional communication as a team practice. Designers lead biweekly platform syncs and present their work to product and engineering partners.
• Led design for Angel's owned theatrical ticketing experience beginning in 2024, using experiments to advance presales, giveaways, Pay It Forward, and group tickets. Created the Homestead giveaway playbook and transitioned theatrical design leadership to a member of my team.

Pay It Forward, PM & Senior Product Designer · Nov 2025–Oct 2026 (alongside lead role). Prototyped the bespoke DAVID Pay It Forward experience with Claude, partnered with a senior engineer to ship it, and delivered four experiments across checkout, confirmation, and in-theater QR. Independently designed and developed Community Impact, with my code shipped to production. Transferred ownership to our theatrical designer and continue to advise.

• Two months in, took on PM and Senior Product Designer of Web: led product design for angel.com, ran design experiments, and designed Angel's digital collectibles.
• Started Photon Design System in late 2022: Angel's design system for web, mobile, and TV. 22 components used by seven teams, each one themeable light and dark. Led it until handing it to our Design System Lead in 2026.
• TV's first product designer (January 2023). Brought the TV app onto Photon with components built for the platform, then led Limited Profiles, designed and built in 30 days before Sound of Freedom reached streaming.

• Founded Historik, a two-sided platform connecting historical institutions and visitors through a web CMS and location-based iOS app. Owned product vision, UX, and design.
• Raised $150K in seed funding, filed a patent, recruited a CTO, and led engineers to launch the MVP across web and iOS.
• Secured our first paying customer and onboarded ten additional institutions. Wound down in 2025, transferring the IP to the Museum of North Idaho.

• Owned every surface for a deep-tech startup inventing carbon-fiber 3D printing, from the brand identity to the tablet interface that runs the printing robot.
• Built the company's design system in Figma as it grew.
• During COVID-19, designed and launched a PPE e-commerce site, pitch decks, and media assets in three weeks with a distributed team.

• DreamTrips Local (WorldVentures): designed three role-based dashboards on one backend. The goal was merchant onboarding 10x faster in 60 days, worldwide. The system delivered 14x.
• Aquabuildr: branded a first-of-its-kind fish-pairing kiosk for big-box pet stores and designed the full tablet experience.

• Design work for clients including Xbox, Safeco Insurance, Dish Network, LASIK Vision Institute, and SAGE Dental.
• Microsoft & Xbox, support desk, 2002 – 2006.