This Is A Prototype: S1•E5 Janaki Kumar & Stefanie Kubanek

“Leadership is really a generosity of spirit. When you care about not just yourself but you care about those around you, and you’re willing to go that extra mile to make others around you successful, it becomes clear you are ready for leadership.” —Janaki Kumar

Throughout Season 1 of the series, we’ve been digging deeply into the hidden, and often surprising characteristics of leadership. Those leadership qualities—actually those human qualities—that don’t come from a text book or a classroom. That’s one of the themes I explore with my guests on this episode, Janaki Kumar and Stefanie Kubanek.

Janaki Kumar is Head of Design at JP Morgan Chase’s Commercial Bank, and previously was head of the Design and Co-Innovation Center at SAP Labs. A thought-leader on design-led innovation in the enterprise, Janaki co-authored the book Gamification at Work – Designing Engaging Business Software. She has spoken at numerous industry conferences and academic programs, including Stanford’s Graduate School of Business where she teaches Customer Experience Design.

Stefanie Kubanek is a New York and Munich-based designer and design educator whose work is inspired by her native-German roots and global perspective. After initially studying goldsmithing, Stefanie completed her Industrial Design studies at the Royal College of Art, and went on to spend a decade at the London office of Pentagram. In addition to running her own design consultancy, she is now Visiting Senior Lecturer at Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in Ithaca, NY, and at Cornell Tech in NYC.