Connor Gettel
Product operator. Designer. Builder.
A decade across fast-scaling fintech — IC to VP at MoonPay, Lead at Curve. Built design teams from 1→8 and 1→12; restructured a ~120-person product/engineering/design org around capabilities, not products. Operate at altitudes most design leaders don't: product architecture, operating models, AI-native workflows. Ship the tooling myself. Heavy cross-functional operator across Product, Engineering, and C-suite — without title authority.
Operating-model design · Product architecture · Design-system strategy · AI-native workflow design · Team & performance design · Code-first design leadership · Commercial design strategy · SwiftUI · TypeScript · Claude Code · Anthropic APIs · Agentic AI · Structured output · Figma plugin development
Experience
MoonPay
London, United KingdomVP of Product Design
Aug 2025 — Mar 2026- Led design across 12 product designers and 8+ product teams through MoonPay's biggest org reset (acquisition-era leadership overhaul).
- Ran design integration for two acquired companies (Iron and Helio) — answered the open question of how their products fit into MoonPay's stack.
- Held the function together as most of the peer leadership layer turned over in my first quarter — new CTO, new SVP of Product, outgoing VP of Product.
- Drove the product/engineering/design restructure with the incoming SVP of Product + CTO — capability-aligned ownership held through the leadership change.
- Made retention calls that held key Product, Design, and Engineering hires through the turbulence.
- Pushed for cross-functional promotions; mentored engineers and PMs through the transition without title authority.
Director of Product Design
Aug 2024 — Aug 2025- Shipped Blocks end-to-end — Off-Ramp launched in 1 month vs On-Ramp's 9 (9× compound velocity); On-Ramp CVR +20% in some markets post-launch; architecture still runs MoonPay's ramp stack across 30M+ customers and ~$2B/yr TTV.
- Made AI-native tooling the function's default — built and shipped both tools myself, code-first.
- Reframed content design's staffing gap as an access problem, not a headcount one — made the case to the SVP of Product to bet on capabilities over headcount; SVP backed it, avoiding ~£650k+/yr in IC hires.
- Shipped the governance tool that proved the bet — MVP in a weekend; content standard extended from 2 teams → every delivery team; one approved hire redirected, one cancelled.
- Built the design co-pilot — canvas-aware thinking partner that raised the floor across a 12-person team; adopted by PMs unprompted.
- Placed 2nd in MoonPay's quarterly PED hackathon — solo-built a Figma plugin (4 days) that gave brand design and CRM on-brand marketing assets.
- Shipped MoonPay's consumer app redesign — unified CeFi + DeFi into a single trading experience.
- Grew consumer org from 1 → 4 teams under a Staff promotion.
- Ran my own recruiting pipeline on a 5-day SLA when the talent function was at capacity.
Head of Product Design
Sep 2023 — Aug 2024- Diagnosed the fragmentation: Auth alone had 4 forked implementations across products; same pattern ran through Identity, Payments, Wallets.
- Conceived and led Blocks — MoonPay's 13-month modular product re-architecture.
- Pitched Blocks to VP of Product + VP of Engineering in June 2023 as a Staff IC; presented to the 300+ person company that December.
- Drove an org-wide restructure (~120 people across product, engineering, and design) around capability-aligned ownership.
- Built Orion design system in parallel; held UX constant to protect CVR through the rebuild.
- Blocks delivered the commercial outcomes the architecture promised: duplicate accounts −30% in 2 quarters once Auth stood alone, EDD turnaround 2 months → <48h via identity-flow independence, KYC pass rates +15% by triggering identity as 'spend readiness' outside the transaction flow.
- Shipped Fiat Balances (UK/EU) as IC simultaneously — two C-suite initiatives in parallel.
- Two designers carried the Blocks design scope, normally owned by a team of 5–8.
Staff Product Designer
Aug 2022 — Sep 2023- Led design on MoonPay's On-Ramp — the company's primary revenue engine — as de facto co-lead of the function within months.
- Conceived ThemeIDs — partner theming unique to MoonPay's stack, deployed at 50+ wallets; drove exclusivity deals (including bitcoin.com) and became a core pillar of enterprise sales.
- Built the colour token architecture; shipped dark mode in 1 week (expected months).
- Reframed the product org's metric architecture — CVR as leading, TTV as lagging — driving millions in additional ARR.
- Made the case for Sell UX as high-potential despite low TTV; lifted it ~10×.
- Led the first FCA Financial Promotion Standard implementation; advised the regulator on UX.
Curve
London, United KingdomLead Product Designer
Apr 2019 — Jun 2022- Scaled Curve's design function 1 → 8 through Series A → C growth; player-coach lead alongside the Head of Product.
- Designed and named Samsung Pay+ in Suwon with Samsung — 100% terminal acceptance vs ~30% without. Live today at samsung.com/uk.
- Led the consumer app rebuild native on iOS + Android (Android-first) against the cross-platform trend.
- Unbundled Curve's onboarding monolith into a modular, experimentable flow — lifted signup → first-transaction CVR 20%+ in some markets; years before Blocks at MoonPay.
- Redesigned Curve's metal cards for the rebrand — industrial design with Composecure.
- Absorbed design leadership in 2021 after a briefly-hired design boss was let go; ran design alongside the Head of Product.
- Orchestrated Curve's design response to the Wirecard weekend — card re-verification UX at customer-base scale.
Product Designer
Nov 2017 — Apr 2019- Joined as ~employee #30 post-Masters; absorbed the design function on day one when my hiring manager resigned.
- Served two product teams simultaneously through early hypergrowth as a self-taught sole designer.
- Led end-to-end design for Amex Top-up, P2P Payments, Insights, and the tiered subscription that shifted Curve's business model.
- Designed the first Curve Metal — adopted by ~6% of users for the card design itself.
- Worked directly with Gemalto, Thales, and Nightcrest on manufacturing; Burgopak on packaging.
- Invented the flow-documentation schema that became the team's default at Curve — later standardised at MoonPay.
Selected solo builds
SystemIQ
2025 — 2026Native SwiftUI design system + agentic AI builder (Anthropic API, tool use, structured output) + Figma plugin bridge. Built solo, end-to-end.
Overhead
2025 — 2026Physical aircraft-tracking object — Raspberry Pi, RTL-SDR, LED matrix, custom firmware, 3D-printed frame in OpenSCAD. Built solo, end-to-end.
Education
University of Westminster
2016 — 2017MA Interactive Media, Industrial and Product Design
DistinctionSAE Institute
2013 — 2015BSc Audio Engineering
1st Class HonoursThe International School of Kuala Lumpur
2008 — 2010IB Diploma