Saara
Lankarani
Over 10 years of building at the intersection of brand, strategy and operations.
Culture Meets
Execution
I'm a Chief of Staff and strategic operator who has spent a decade embedded in executive leadership—at Meta, Hinge, and Mammoth Brands. I build the systems, communications, and operational infrastructure that let creative organizations move fast.
I started in editorial production at Condé Nast, producing celebrity shoots for GQ and Vogue before moving into operational leadership in tech. I've since run large-scale creative operations, stood up new functions and processes, and kept executive teams focused in rapid growth and transformation, always bridging creative culture and business execution.
What I Do
Best
Creative Operations
Building portfolio management systems, governance processes, communication rhythms and operational infrastructure that enable teams to ship at scale.
Executive Communications
Owning content strategy, scripting, briefing and stakeholder coordination for Town Halls, leadership offsites, VP livestream series for 1,000+ person organizations.
Strategic Operations
Operating as the CEO's strategic lead on inflection points including M&As, rapid growth, change management and organizational transformation.
Event Production
Producing executive events, board meetings, global summits, company retreats — from concept to delivery, on time and on budget.
Budget & Resource Management
Managing multi-million dollar programs, vendor relationships, and resource allocation across complex cross-functional organizations.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Partnering across Product, Brand, Legal, Marketing and Engineering to define strategy, reduce ambiguity, and accelerate execution.
Key Wins
Career
Timeline
Meta
Design Operations Program Manager
Facebook Design Systems- —Driving operations for Facebook's design system, 7000+ people serving 3B+ users.
- —Building portfolio management frameworks, governance models, and communications infrastructure to ensure design can build with increasing consistency, scalability, and accessibility across the ecosystem.
- —Produced Facebook Design's largest global summit for 500+ designers, including the creation of Peer Talks, an ongoing thought-leadership series amplifying cross-functional innovation
- —Developed and executed internal communications strategy for Design Leadership, structuring executive programming, Q&As and All Hands cadence across the full design organization.
Hinge
Chief of Staff
Office of the CEO- —Served as the CEO's lead operational partner during 3x headcount growth (60 to 200 employees)
- —Diagnosed decision-making bottlenecks and implemented the RAPID framework and a universal project brief, reducing role ambiguity from 63% to 32% in 6 months
- —Launched Hinge's first corporate responsibility program: $1M budget, 4 XFN teams, zero prior playbook
- —Owned executive communications strategy, stakeholder coordination, and CEO time management
- —Facilitated leadership alignment and communications during key change management periods
Mammoth Brands
Executive Business Manager
Office of the CEO- —Led CEO communications, external positioning, and executive coordination through Harry's $1.37B acquisition by Edgewell.
- —Designed and delivered the top-rated session (96%) at a Global CPG Leadership Conference, aligning 4 cross-functional teams and CEOs to deliver a workshop to 200+ senior leaders within six weeks.
- —Oversaw executive governance cadence, producing 150+ board meetings, leadership offsites, and enterprise events on time and on budget.
- —Directed CEO external strategy and thought leadership, including a Bloomberg panel and the launch of Walmart's Emerging Entrepreneur Summit.
JOOR
Product Support Operations Lead
B2B Fashion Platform- —Built Product Support function from zero — defining strategy, processes, tooling, and team structure for a scaling B2B platform
- —Launched the company's first CX and CRM systems, reducing customer churn by 12% and supporting 33% portfolio growth
Diane von Furstenberg
eCommerce Operations
Women's RTW- —Redesigned eCommerce operations infrastructure, lifting customer satisfaction from 81% to 94% and reducing response time from 24 hours to 2 hours
GQ Magazine
Bookings Production Coordinator
Condé Nast- —Managed production for 40+ celebrity editorial shoots — coordinating A-list talent, photographers, stylists and additional vendors for a 50M-audience global publication
- —Supported $4M annual production budget, upholding the operational discipline that informed a decade of creative leadership
- —Led the editorial intern program of 20 students, from onboarding through weekly management
Parsons The New School
MA, Fashion Studies
Columbia University
BS, Nursing
University of Oregon
BA, Journalism & Communication
Vogue
Editorial Production
Vogue.com
Digital
ELLE
Beauty and Fitness
Let's Work
Together
Pursuing opportunities at the intersection of tech and entertainment.