Rocco Bombardieri
Director of Design & Development at The Influence Agency – 6 years of product design, design systems, and team building from zero to award-winning.
The short version
I lead The Influence Agency's Design & Development team by doing what most roles split into three – I design the products, build the design systems that scale them, and lead the people who ship them. Started as the only designer. Built both departments from the ground up, helped grow revenue output 50%+ year over year, and still have every person I've hired.
Industry recognition, 2022–2025.
The team earned recognition across design, development, and digital excellence. These wins aren’t solo – they’re what happens when you build the right systems and standards around talented people.
Asana Guest Speaker 2024
Summit Creative Award Winner
CSSW Gold Star
Awwwards Honors Mention
Toronto Star Reader's Choice Gold Winner
Things I’ve shipped
Creator & Architect
An MCP-based RAG pipeline that unifies Asana projects, Google Drive, meeting notes, media plans, and websites into any LLM interface, enforcing consistent work output across 215+ client accounts and 60+ ICs.
Director of Design & Development
Led the full redesign with an 8-person team. Built reusable CMS templates for rapid scaling and better AI integration. Coordinated with overseas teams on project mapping and page expansion. Since launch, the site has surpassed common agency benchmarks for engagement, interaction, and time on page.
65%
Engagement rate
5.2
Events per session
Or take a moment to draw🎨.
Really lovely! :)
01 / 03
An MCP-based RAG pipeline that unifies the agency's Asana projects, Google Drive, meeting notes, media plans, and websites into any LLM interface – enforcing consistent, high-quality output across 215+ client accounts and 60+ individual contributors.
Built solo, from PRD through production rollout.
Knowledge was fragmented. An agency-wide survey I ran revealed that 61% of participants identified "centralize client knowledge" as their top pain point. Context got lost between client handoffs. Past decisions lived in emails, meeting notes, and individual drives. Teams were making avoidable mistakes – not because they lacked skills, but because the information wasn't accessible.
System architecture diagram – MCP pipeline connecting Asana, Google Drive, and multiple LLM interfaces
I chose MCP (Model Context Protocol) as the architecture so the system could work inside any LLM interface the team already uses – Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, whatever comes next. The tool meets people where they are instead of introducing yet another product to manage.
Supabase stores vectorized project data. Railway hosts the pipeline. Individual access is granted per user. I ran enablement sessions with ICs on connecting Briefcase to their existing third-party stacks – Webflow, SEMRush, ad platforms.
Surveyed 60+ team members across every department to map knowledge pain points
Synthesized findings – fragmented context was the root cause of inconsistent output
Chose MCP architecture so the tool works regardless of which LLM each person prefers
Solo-built the full pipeline – PRD writing, architecture planning, and iterative build cycles
Loaded 215+ client accounts from Asana and Google Drive automatically on first run
Implemented beta rollout with feedback tooling baked in for rapid iteration
Running ongoing enablement sessions with ICs on usage and third-party connectivity
LLM-agnostic by design via MCP. Production-ready, deployed agency-wide. Enables consistent output without changing anyone's existing workflow.
02 / 03
Led the full redesign of The Influence Agency's website with an 8-person cross-functional team. Built a reusable CMS template system that enabled rapid page scaling without developer intervention. Since launch, the site has exceeded industry benchmarks for engagement, interaction depth, and time on page.
The previous site hadn't been updated in years. It wasn't reflecting the agency's growth, capabilities, or the quality of work the team was producing. Engagement metrics were below industry averages, and content updates required developer involvement every time.
Final design – scroll-driven storytelling with GSAP-powered interactive sections
Led a full redesign centred on interactive storytelling and performance. Built custom GSAP animations, optimized all Core Web Vitals to green across the board, and designed a reusable CMS template system so non-technical team members could scale pages independently.
Coordinated with overseas team members on project mapping and page-level expansion across all departments.
Audited the existing site against competitor agencies and identified all engagement gaps
Managed an 8-person team across design, development, and content
Built reusable CMS templates for all like-templates, enabling rapid page scaling
Designed scroll-driven storytelling with GSAP-powered interactive sections
Coordinated with overseas teams on expansion and project mapping
Optimized Core Web Vitals – all green on PageSpeed Insights at launch
The site became the agency's primary sales tool. Metrics exceeded benchmarks within the first month of launch. Non-technical team members now manage and scale pages independently.
03 / 03
Designed and developed PBJ Food Group's digital presence from scratch – solo, in one week. A multi-concept restaurant group needed a cohesive brand identity online without losing the individual personality of each restaurant concept.
PBJ operates multiple restaurant brands under one parent group. Each concept has its own personality, but there was no unified digital presence tying them together. No shared visual language, no scalable structure – and a hard one-week delivery window.
Multi-concept design system – cohesive parent brand with per-concept theming
Designed a modular system with shared components and brand-specific theming. The architecture lets each restaurant concept feel distinct while staying visually coherent as part of the same group. Design to code, solo, in a week – no handoffs, no waiting.
Defined the group visual system and how concepts would differentiate within it
Designed all pages in Figma before building – compressed timeline required no iteration during development
Built the full Webflow site with CMS-driven architecture for each restaurant concept
Built and launched in 5 days from first design pass to live URL
Full CMS setup with editor documentation for the client team
