Michael
James
Clarke

Product Designer based in Toronto · Growth, subscription and retention

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Experience

Staff Product DesignerHelloFresh

08/2025 – Present

Maternity leave cover

Owning growth strategy across a portfolio of nine brands — acquisition, referral, subscription and retention treated as one system rather than four separate funnels. Design lead on an AI squad that runs autonomously inside HelloFresh. The squad works as an incubator: rapid prototyping, shipping and iterating in a startup environment, then bundling proven features and handing them to the other nine brands.

Refer a Friend. Weekly US invites up more than 4.5% versus control, statistically significant, after six years of decline. Led the strategy, visuals and design for a $12.7M program that had fallen from 30% of new customers in 2020 to 6%. Cut the friend’s signup from 21 steps to four. Moved the invite to the moment after meals are picked, which took weekly invites there from under 100 to over 600. Built one reusable reward component (reward, credit, raffle). Weekly US conversions rose from a 1,318 Q2 average to 1,658 by late August, and experiment setup went from 60.5 hours to the same day. Live in the US, Canada and Germany, ten weeks from kickoff to launch.

Factor+. Customers offered the membership placed 30.5% more orders, brought 12.6% more predicted value and cancelled 7.4% less than control. Design lead on an AI squad building a paid membership on top of Factor’s meal subscription. Before rollout I modeled a year across every loyalty level, found it turned negative from 11 boxes up at about $641 a year per customer, and argued for releasing it tier by tier against control. One in 10 customers joined, with 45,609 members by week 34, about 9% of active customers. Recommended as the starting point for HelloFresh+.

Lead Product DesignerMLSE

10/2024 – 09/2025

Maple Leaf Sports and EntertainmentCompany-wide layoff

Led a major UX overhaul across MLSE’s sports apps, including Toronto Maple Leafs playoff updates that drove a 43% spike in users and propelled the app to the #1 spot among sports apps in Canada on the App Store.

Redesigned critical user flows to boost discoverability of schedules (+20.6%) and highlight content (+24.8%), while optimizing revenue-driving features within CMS limitations.

Implemented a self segmentation screen to personalize the user journey and surface relevant content based on fan context (in-arena, at home, tailgate).

Simplified the sign in experience by eliminating fragmented login paths, reducing friction and improving accessibility.

Senior Product DesignerHousecall Pro

07/2022 – 05/2024

Company-wide layoff

Led the foundation team consisting of 8 developers, tech lead and PM.

Owned the end to end design strategy for our in house e-signatures product, driving activation, adoption and revenue across the platform.

Collaborated cross functionally with account and fintech teams to integrate e-signatures into key workflows, achieving a 66% adoption rate within the first 3 months. This led to an average of $1.32M in additional approved work, a 27% increase in finalized approvals, and reduced approval turnaround time from days to just ~37 minutes.

Championed the creation of project templates. An 87% adoption rate within the first month and over 50% increase in project efficiency and creation.

Lead Product DesignerIBM Canada

03/2022 – 10/2022

Fixed-term conference contract

Spearheaded the creative direction, UX, and branding for IBM’s inaugural Weavesphere conference, completing the project within a strict 6 month requirement.

Developed the brand identity, website, marketing materials, and pitch decks. Collaborated with IBM’s developers to ensure pixel-perfect execution.

The conference surpassed targets with over 5,000 attendees (200% of the goal), 200 speakers (400% of the goal), and 150 startups (300% of the goal). Met all deadlines and quality standards, achieving a 95% stakeholder satisfaction rate.

Senior Product DesignerVish

06/2021 – 06/2022

Layoff

Oversaw the creation and maintenance of a ground up design system, including components, libraries, and patterns, driving a 75% increase in design efficiency.

Collaborated with developers to ensure flawless integration, reducing post-launch design issues by more than 50%.

Led continuous refinement and design reviews, contributing to a 20% reduction in support tickets by addressing key usability challenges.

Senior Brand and UX DesignerSawmill Creative

03/2020 – 05/2021

Layoff

Developed an automation tool that standardized email communications for the largest client, boosting design efficiency by over 55% resulting in a 40% increase in monthly workload.

Led the creative direction for multiple web development projects, achieving a 100% client approval rate and driving a 30% increase in repeat business.

Co-Founder and MakerHook & Stem

01/2016 – 03/2020

Co-founded Hook & Stem, a woodworking home decor shop, driving over $1 million in revenue within the first three years.

Designed and built 100% of products, selling 100,000+ items with a 5-star average rating across 2,000+ reviews. Secured partnerships with West Elm and other notable retailers, boosting monthly visitors by 10%.

Delivered a 10,000-piece custom order for Shopify, resulting in a 4% increase in new customers.

Education

User Research and InsightsOCAD University

2021

Practice

Focus
UX Strategy · Systems Thinking · Craft Mastery · Growth Strategy · Experimentation and A/B Testing · Design Systems · Rapid Prototyping · Research and Synthesis · Multi-brand Coherence
Growth
Experiment design and readouts, cohort and lifecycle segmentation, offer and incentive economics, and the platform work that decides whether a team can test at all.
AI practice
Daily across the workflow rather than at the edges of it: synthesis and strategy pressure testing, and working prototypes built in code to test a flow before it costs engineering time. Judgment about where the output still needs a human hand is the part that matters.
Tools
Claude and Claude Code · ChatGPT · Gemini · Cursor · Figma Make and Figma AI · v0 · Lovable · Midjourney · NotebookLM · Perplexity · Figma · FigJam · Adobe CC · HTML and CSS · Webflow · SwiftUI · SwiftData · Xcode · Amplitude · Mixpanel · FullStory

Ask me about anything related to photography, including the time I had the privilege of photographing Patrick Adams’ (from Suits) wedding.