About Jesse Haff
I'm an entrepreneur, musician, and design lead at Shopify. A co-founder of NationBuilder, I served as VP of Design for over a decade.
Prior to NationBuilder, I was on the founding team and Principal Designer at Brave New Films, a company combining the power of storytelling with online activism. There I collaborated with Jim Gilliam in pioneering the technical infrastructure and advocacy tools to organize movements online, leading to over a million members and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for important causes. The seeds of NationBuilder began with the desire to make this technology easy to use and accessible to leaders worldwide.
Music plays a hugely important role in my life. At twenty I created the band Daylight Dies, with whom I've released four critically-acclaimed albums and toured the world. I've also released two albums with Gökböri, a Turkish metal band in which I'm the only non-Turk. During the pandemic, I helped form MMXX, an international collaboration shaped by isolation and a shared need to create.
Whether designing digital communities or creating music, I'm happiest when I'm leading teams of creative, motivated people in the pursuit of something meaningful. I'm particularly effective when a project requires a combination of creative vision and the meticulous execution required to make that vision a reality. Always curious, I also love exploring other cultures through travel and learning about the mind through daily meditation.