Dropbox has named Nicholas Jitkoff as its new Vice President of design. Jitkoff joins the company from Google, where he headed the search giant’s Material Design team. Interestingly, Jitkoff will be Dropbox’s first ever vice president of design and will also be the first designer who gets a seat at Dropbox’s executive council.
Announcing the hire, Dropbox said:
Nicholas will lead our Design team in defining their vision for Dropbox. He’ll also help us continue to grow our diverse and talented teams across Design Research, Product Design, Brand Design, and UX Writing.
Dropbox also took the occasion to remark upon the importance of design for its business:
Design has always been at the heart of Dropbox, tying our products together and solving fundamental problems that impact the lives of millions of people around the world. Working closely with our Engineering and Product teams.
Interestingly, the hire comes on the heels of a bunch of important announcements. Last week, the company announced that it was redesigning its whole web experience. It also announced the launch of a synchronization product Smart Synd, and the global launch of note-taking app Paper. The event was also marked by Dropbox’s announcement that it had managed to hit a $1 Billion run rate.
Earlier, Jitkoff was a principal designer at Google and worked on various important design projects for over 10 years. Some of the important projects undertaken by him include the design of Chrome. He also played a key role in developing Google’s Material Design language. As an executive who has experience in both design as well as consumer products, Jitkoff will likely prove to be a valuable asset to whatever company he joins.
Meanwhile, Jitkoff expressed his gratitude to his former team at Google, via a tweet:
To the talented folks at @googledesign and Material: thank you so much for a wonderful ten years. It has been an honor to work with you!
