I’m Jeff Lagasca, a Northern California native who followed a spark of curiosity all the way to New York City in 2006. I came here with a suitcase, some design skills, and the belief that technology could help people feel more connected to each other and to the world around them. Six weeks later, I landed at Sosauce, a tiny travel startup where I spent my days designing and hand-coding social travel tools with a team of four. That experience taught me something foundational: product design empowers people to explore, express, and contribute in ways they didn’t know were possible.

Over the years, my work has stretched across consumer apps, enterprise platforms, and large-scale service ecosystems — often partnering with product and engineering teams through multi-year journeys of research, iteration, and transformation. Along the way, I found myself gravitating toward leadership not because of title but because I genuinely enjoy helping others grow. I love guiding teams through ambiguity, connecting dots across disciplines, and creating open, trusting environments where designers feel safe to experiment, ask hard questions, and bring forward bold ideas. Whether in a startup, an agency, or a global organization, my work has always centered on elevating clarity, fostering collaboration, and designing experiences that make people’s day-to-day lives a little easier.

I’m still driven by the same curiosity that brought me here, still energized by the possibility in every working session, every research interview, every design review where something suddenly clicks. Today, I live in Brooklyn, still designing with the same spirit I had at 14 when I built my first Geocities site… just with a bit more perspective, and a little less Comic Sans.