Design To Be Conversation

Andy Vitale is a design executive, educator, speaker, and co-host of the Surfacing Podcast. He is currently the Executive Vice President of Design at Rocket Companies, where he leads a team focused on transforming the lending and finance industry, through a human-centered approach, to provide the best experience for millions of people. Throughout his career, he has built, scaled, and led teams that elevate the role of Design as an ...

Amy Thibodeau is the Chief Design Officer at Gusto, where she empowers designers, researchers, and content strategists who are working on products that connect companies with their employees in a more meaningful way. Previously, Amy was a senior director of UX at Shopify where she led a cross-functional team of over 130 people working on core business products. During her time at Shopify, she also led the launch of the Polaris desi...

Renato Valdés Olmos is an executive, angel investor, and advisor with over two decades of experience serving millions of customers worldwide. He's built products, brands, and organizations in various industries, including artificial intelligence, transportation, healthcare, and productivity tools. Most recently, he served as VP of Product at Pitch, and Head of Design at Grammarly and is currently focusing on being a Dad and in...

Bob Baxley is a design executive, advisor, mentor, and advocate who has built, managed and led UX teams at some of Silicon Valley’s most respected companies. With a career spanning three decades, Bob's work at Apple, Pinterest, Yahoo!, and elsewhere has touched hundreds of millions of users around the world. Currently, Bob serves as the Senior Vice-President of Design at ThoughtSpot, a business intelligence, and data analytics...

Over the last 25 years, Parameswaran Venkataraman has been in design and innovation leadership roles across companies like IDEO, Tata Digital, Fractal.ai, Dr. Reddy’s and Sapient. Over the last decade, he has been instrumental in setting up and establishing strategic design capabilities & culture in several organizations. Some of the work Param has led at Studio 5B at Dr. Reddy's is now a featured case study in IDEO U’s co...

Jesse James Garrett has been one of the most prominent voices in digital product design for more than 20 years. His career highlights include co-founding the groundbreaking UX consultancy, Adaptive Path; writing the foundational book The Elements of User Experience, whose iconic five-plane model has become a staple of the field; and defining Ajax, the dynamic interaction model that transformed web technology and design in the Web 2...

Tim Allen is the Global Head of Design at Instacart. He leads the global product design, research, content and operations, centered on food access and inclusivity. His focus on fueling human potential is key to building products and cultures that inspire people to do their best work. As an additional outlet for his passion for design thinking, Tim was named one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business for 2017.  Tim ...

Noah Levin is a Senior Product Design Director at Figma. His job includes a variety of things, like attracting and retaining talented designers, setting and sharing context, providing actionable feedback, and helping facilitate a healthy environment for design in the company. Before Figma, he led design teams at ClassPass and Google, taught designers to code as an advisor at Framer, and built a cuff-mounted digital assistant for as...

Sameera Kapila is a designer, educator, manager, and writer who works as a senior product designer at Netlify. Born in India, raised on the Dutch island of Curaçao, and living in Austin, TX, Sameera has held roles in agencies, educational institutions, and consultancies ranging from individual contributor to executive leadership, student to educator, and everything in between. She writes and speaks about web and product design, div...

In today’s episode, I chat with Sarah Doody. Sarah is the Founder & CEO of Career Strategy Lab, a UX career accelerator that helps UX and product professionals navigate their job search and get hired without applying to hundreds of jobs. Professionals that have worked with Sarah have landed jobs at Amazon, Blue Origin, Home Depot, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, and more and on average, they increase their salaries by 40%.

She is al...

In today's episode, I speak with Dan Szuc and Josephine Wong. 

Dan is a co-founder and principal at Apogee and co-founder of Make Meaningful Work, as well as the co-founder of UX Hong Kong. He has been involved in the UX field and based in Hong Kong for over 20 years. Dan has lectured about user-centered design globally. He has co-authored three books including Global UX with Whitney Quesenbery, The Usability Kit wit...

In today’s episode, I speak with Evan Dody. Evan is the Head of Design + Creative at Angi (including HomeAdvisor and Handy). He leads Product Design, Brand Creative, UX Research, UX Writing, and DesignOps across the multi-sided home services marketplace. He and his team help homeowners across the country create and care for homes they love, while simultaneously helping local businesses thrive.

Prior to Angi, Evan led desi...

In today's episode, I speak with Fonz Morris. Fonz is an entrepreneur and self-taught designer, born in Brooklyn and now based in San Jose. He has worked in tech and design on both coasts of the United States, in Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and California. His belief in the importance of self-driven education continued through his travels through Europe, Central and South America, and South East Asia. Sin...

In today’s episode, I speak with Andy Budd. Andy is a design leader, conference speaker, start-up advisor & coach. He co-founded Clearleft, the first dedicated UX consultancy in the UK, along with the Leading Design and UX London conferences. He’s a member of the Adobe Design Circle, and has appeared on both the Wired 100 and BIMA 100 lists of influential leaders in tech. He’s currently helping start-up founders make the most o...

This is our 50th episode of Design To Be Conversation. Thank you all so much for your support – and an extra special thanks to those of you who have been listening since the beginning! Today we’re celebrating by doing something a little bit different. In this episode, our guest host Jayneil Dalal interviews me about my experience with a 10-day silent meditation retreat.

Jayneil Dalal is a product designer born in Gujarat,...

In today’s episode, I speak with Malthe Sigurdsson. Malthe has 25 years of experience as a designer and design leader building, scaling, and managing design organizations that deliver beautiful and effective work across multiple disciplines and product categories. He is currently the Chief Design Officer at Handshake, where he is leading product and brand design across the company. At Handshake his goal is to help level up the end-...

In today’s episode, I speak with Ximena Vengoechea. Ximena is a user researcher, writer, and illustrator whose work on personal and professional development has been published in Inc., The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Huffington Post. She is the author of the new book, Listen Like You Mean it: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection (Portfolio/Penguin Random House). She is a contributor at Fast Company and The Muse, and writes...

In today’s episode, I speak with Susan Weinschenk. Susan has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is the Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO at The Team W, Inc, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.

Susan consults with Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments, and nonprofits, and is the author of several books, including 100 Things Every  Designer Needs To Know About People, 100 MORE Thi...

In today’s episode, I speak with Indi Young. Indi is a researcher who coaches, writes, and teaches about inclusive product strategy. Her work is rooted in the problem space where the focus is on people, not users. Indi pioneered opportunity maps, mental model diagrams, and thinking styles. Her way of approaching the problem allows teams to truly pay attention to people, without letting cognitive bias and assumptions creep in.
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