Tana Helean is a strategic design executive with two decades of experience shaping emerging fields through interdisciplinary collaboration and applied creativity. She specializes in navigating ambiguity and complexity to cultivate latent potential. Her work bridges systems thinking with hands-on creation—building teams, programs, products, and platforms that anticipate and thrive in evolving contexts. Her practice is rooted in pragmatic idealism and informed by a deep generalist background that spans disciplines, mediums, and scales. She moves fluidly between high-level vision and the details that bring it to life.
Currently, Tana is co-leading cross-functional teams at Spherical—a strategic design and integrative research studio focused on regenerating the health and integrity of Earth’s living systems. Previously, she was part of the founding executive team at Sphere, partnered with Fortune 100 clients at Obscura Digital, and worked alongside the founders to design and launch the pioneering art and technology organizations Gray Area and Recombinant Media Labs.
Tana holds a BA from UC San Diego and an MFA from Mills College, where she received interdisciplinary training that wove together theory, philosophy, science, and technical craft—across design, immersive media, audio production, computer music, and both hardware and software engineering.
Expertise
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Strategic Vision
Design Strategy
Innovation Strategy
Experience Strategy / CX
Future State / OKRs / KPIs
Roadmapping & Tactical Planning
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Linear, Interactive & Immersive Media
Art Direction & Visual Design
Spatial Experience Design
UI/UX Design
Prototyping
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Audio, Video, Gaming, VFX, 2D/3D graphics pipelines
XR, Spatial Computing, and Novel Interfaces
Technical Architecture & Specification
Realtime frameworks
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Stakeholder Alignment
Cross-functional Leadership
Inclusive Team Building & Management
Organization Design & Resourcing
Workstream Definition & Tools
Agile & Waterfall PM Methodologies
Vendor Engagement & Management
Strategic Partnerships
Pitching & Contracts
References
“Tana is a force. She is at once creative, strategic, and technical; a beloved manager and strong advocate. Not only is she is extremely knowledgeable about real-time technologies and the tech stack required to execute large-scale immersive experiences (LBX), she enforces thoughtful human-centric design and UX. Her unique skill and experience are incredibly rare and valuable in a world that is becoming increasingly immersive and interconnected.”
CEO/Co-founder at Lamina1. Magic Leap, Capitol Records, MIT and Carnegie Mellon alum.
“What truly sets Tana apart is her unwavering belief in the potential of her team members. She has an incredible knack for identifying talent and nurturing it, empowering individuals to grow both professionally and personally. Tana recognizes the importance of trust and delegation in building strong teams, and her confidence in others to lead on her behalf fosters a culture of collaboration, motivation, and collective success. Through her guidance and support, our team has flourished, and each member has been able to realize their full potential.”
Product Designer at Meta. Magic Leap, MIT, and Yale alum.
“Tana is a thoughtful and strategic technical leader. Tana and I worked together to develop the roadmap, required resourcing, and development milestones for Sphere's content development toolkit (required to support a multi million dollar advertising business unit). I found Tana to be collaborative, open to new ideas, be creative when looking for ways to speed up deadlines, and able to identify and call out cross-functional dependencies when needed. Tana is equal parts creative and technical - this is was obvious in her work in defining various scalable and repeatable ways in which beautiful content could come to life on the Sphere. Tana is very empathetic but at the same time not afraid to push back when in the best interest of the organization's goals. Any organization would be lucky to have Tana!”
VP, Product at Sphere. AWS and MIT alum.
“Tana has the rare ability to identify the unique strengths of each team member and leverage them to elevate the whole group. Her problem-solving style blends analytical rigor with creative thinking, inspiring us to deliver our best work. I wholeheartedly recommend Tana for any leadership role in the emerging tech industry.”
Lead Software Engineer at Sphere. DreamWorks and USC alum.