Hello, I’m Shay
I’m a product leader with a marketing, design, and engineering background.
My love is for solving problems. Specifically providing simple solutions to what was previously arcane or impossible. Solutions that, while intuitive, provide value to the customer and business alike.
Recently & Elsewhere
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Every One-on-One Meeting Should Ask This Question
- Startups.co
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For Managers: How to Provide Meaningful Feedback
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Could Five Questions Help You Become a Better Manager?
- Chicago Inno
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Be a Better Leader
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Think Like a Four-Year-Old
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How I Read & Remember What I Read
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Chicago companies adopt Google's design sprints
- Built In Chicago Interview
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Sass Mixins vs Extends: The Data
- Belly Tech
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Shay Howe, Product Director at Belly
- Campfire Interview
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Learn Beginner and Advanced HTML/CSS Skills for Free
- Lifehacker Feature
Work
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ActiveCampaign
Chief Marketing Officer
Amidst a rapidly growing business, I lead a team of multidisciplinary marketers, designers, engineers, and partner managers focused on our customers, ensuring we’re solving the right problems with the best solutions, delivering business value everyday. Collaborating cross-functionally, my role includes building and mentoring teams as well as shaping our strategy and vision.
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Lead Honestly (Acquired)
Co-Founder
Wanting to help others become better managers and foster high performing teams, I co-founded Lead Honestly to help managers grow as a leaders and actively engage their employees. Be it with design, development, marketing, finance, or anywhere in-between, I work on every aspect of the business, helping me round out and strengthen my overall skill set.
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Yello
VP of Product
Leading and mentoring teams of product managers and designers, I worked collaboratively across the entire organization to deliver the product vision and strategy, and help drive the execution and iteration of our products. With short-term client needs and long-term strategic needs in mind, I aligned our product evolution and overall mission.
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Belly
VP of Product
Leading the Product, Design, and Front-end Engineering teams, I was responsible for the overall strategy, development, growth, and adoption of our products. Day to day I worked closely with cross-functional stakeholders, oversee numerous product and project teams, and mentored the team building the world’s best loyalty program.
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Groupon
User Interface Engineer
While fostering a stronger relationship between the design and engineering teams, I helped multiple product teams with different initiatives including redesigning Groupon.com, numerous conversion optimization projects, building visual and interface guidelines, and a developing large scale front-end architecture.
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The Starter League
Design Director & Instructor
With growing involvement over time, I began as an advisor and mentor and later helped build and lead the design education program, including teaching the front-end development courses. Furthermore, I lead a product team to build a learning management system to expand the in-class experience.
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lightbank
Product Designer & Front-end Engineer
Venturing from web to product focused work, at lightbank I leveraged my multidisciplinary design and development skill set to help build different products and businesses, including working with Groupon, Belly, and Pawngo amongst others.
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Agency & Freelance
Web Designer & Front-end Engineer
Specializing in visual and user experience design, I got my start working with different agencies and picking up freelance projects. Wanting to be able to build what I was designing, and by extension have a larger impact on the end user experience, I expanded my skills to include front-end development.
Extracurricular
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Learn to Code HTML & CSS
Author
Following my passion for education, I wrote Learn to Code HTML and CSS to teach people how to develop and style websites with HTML and CSS. Outlining the fundamentals, the guides cover all of the common elements of front-end design and development, and were subsequently published as a book by New Riders, a subsidiary of Pearson Education.
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Chicago Camps
Co-Founder
Alongside Brad Simpson and Russ Unger, I co-founded Chicago Camps, an organization with the intention of bringing high-value, low-cost events to the technology community. Our goal includes helping find new talent and topics and provide a forum for those to be shared.
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Techstars
Mentor
Working alongside the best and brightest, I routinely meet with and mentor with Techstars portfolio companies new and old. My relationships with these companies are deep as we cover opportunities ranging from product, design, and engineering to fundraising, recruiting, and leadership, or anything in-between.
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Prota Ventures
Partner
Prota Ventures is a venture-building and early-stage investment firm where I assist with business ideation, validation, and execution. It’s an all star team of operators on a mission to launch inspiring new ventures and invest in early-stage founders.
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Refresh Chicago
Co-Organizer
With Jon Buda, Anthony Zinni, and the late Matt Puchlerz, I’ve had the pleasure of co-organizing Refresh Chicago meetups for over five years. With roughly 3,000 members, Refresh Chicago is one of the largest communities of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of New Media endeavors.
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DESIGNATION (Acquired)
Board Member
As an Advisory Board Member for DESIGNATION, I help guide and support the leadership team in building one of the world’s best design education programs.