Shu Lai in

Shu Lai

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Head of Design at Outschool
📍 San Francisco Bay Area, United States

Shu Lai is the Head of Design at Outschool, specializing in design leadership, product strategy, and user experience. With a history of leading teams at Wonderschool, Coursera, and HOVER, he focuses on building strong teams to solve human-centric problems. Colleagues describe him as visionary, creative, insightful, and decisive.

Outside of his core roles, Shu is a startup advisor and a frequent public speaker on design topics. He is passionate about mentoring and advancing the practice of design leadership, dedicating time to fostering community and sharing knowledge. He holds a Bachelors degree from the California College of the Arts.

Shu is a member of the exclusive InVision Design Leadership Forum, a community for top global design leaders.

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Experience
9 Years
Current Role
Head of Design
Job Level
Mid-senior
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, United States
Personality Overview

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Communication Style
Decision Approach
Work Preference

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Priorities

Topics Shu cares about

Design Leadership
His career is defined by leading and growing design teams at companies like Outschool and Wonderschool, and he is a member of the Design Leadership Forum.
Scaling Design Teams
He has guided design functions through hyper-growth at multiple startups and speaks publicly about the challenges of scaling design operations and culture effectively.
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Career

Work history

3-2025
Head of Design
Outschool
5-2018
Member, Design Leadership Forum by InVision
Design Leadership Forum
9-2022 - 2-2025
VP of Design
Wonderschool
7-2020 - 9-2022
Head of Design
HOVER Inc.
2-2017 - 7-2020
Head of Product Design
Coursera
In the press

Media appearances

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Education
2001 - 2003
Bachelor's degree
California College of the Arts
Social presence
in
Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

DISC behavioral profile

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