Leslie Ali Walker I Creative Director, Product Manager
I LIVE FOR ORIGINAL IDEAS AND HARD TO SOLVE PROBLEMS. I AM MORE INTERESTED IN NOT KNOWING THAN BEING THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM.
17 years of trying new things
4 continents I call home
18 months from 0 to 1
I've spent the last 18 months going deep on AI. I can build prototypes now, and I like it. I’ve since applied this product development skill to things I believe are important, and experimented a little. I especially like that it pushes me to think bigger and work with teams I otherwise couldn’t.
I can apply editorial judgment and design how AI behaves in the world. Not the models. The layer above: voice, personality, character, ethical boundaries. The decisions that determine whether a person trusts a brand — or not.
Working on Nike, IKEA and Google at Wieden+Kennedy, BMP/DDB London, JWT New York, and Host, Sydney taught me how people in different cultures respond to language, tone, authority, and silence. That's the skillset AI products are missing — someone who can design an AI's character for a specific human audience and hold the line on it.
To see if I could help the urban parents in my Brooklyn neighborhood, I spent two years building Need/Done — an iOS app that gave dual-income urban parents the village the US childcare system forgot to provide. Designed it, funded it, piloted it in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The whole journey was documented across four podcast episodes of WNYC's Note to Self with Manoush Zomorodi. We ran out of runway. The idea kept going.
Most recently, I developed and designed HELPER — an AI voice-activated companion for aging parents and the adult child who coordinates their care. The product's core metric isn't engagement. It's relief.
Sundance. Cannes Lions. Spikes Asia Grand Prix. Wieden. Google Creative Lab. Founded CVLRY. Four languages.
What makes me proudest? Ask me for the PRD.