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"I believe design leadership is shining a light on what could be complex, gnarly challenges. It comes down to three things for me. I think it's about creating a safe and trusted space, aligning multiple people and not losing sight that we are in service to people." - Vincent Matyi In this episode, Rebecca Kalogeris talks to Vincent Matyi, the global head of design for Onyx at JPMorgan Chase. Vincent shares his unique perspective on design leadership. During this episode, they discuss:Vincent's philosophy on design leadership and its three core principlesStrategies for leading design teams with trust and alignmentHow to approach complex challenges and create impact through designThe importance of staying in service to people and harmonizing different stakeholdersEnhance Your Design Strategy with Pragmatic InstituteWant to align your design work with business outcomes and demonstrate its value? Enroll in Pragmatic Institute's Business Strategy & Design course. Gain grounding in business strategy, learn the tools and vocabulary of key business stakeholders, and actively apply knowledge to contribute to strategic conversations. Discover how to demonstrate design's return on investment and advance key business objectives.Learn More
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“Technical skills are great up to a certain point in your career. However, When you're trying to do that jump from senior to lead or senior to manager, that is when you really need to be thinking about these power skills.” - Rochelle Williams, lead product designer at Elsewhen.In this episode, Rebecca Kalogeris and Rochelle explore a variety of power skills, how to build them and demonstrate them daily. During this conversation, Rochelle not only provides an overview of her winding design career but also gives practical advice to both novice and experienced designers on how to grow their strategic impact and advance their careers.During this episode, they discuss:Why Rochelle urges people to use “power skills” instead of “soft skills” because they “aren’t a nice to have, they are a must-have.”How to enable decision-making (aka facilitation)Strategies to get more from design workshopsHow to navigate conflict management and self-managementWays to start building your power skills todayLearn How to Incorporate Business Strategy into Your Design RoleDiscover how to align your design work with business outcomes and demonstrate its value to business objectives in Pragmatic’s Business Strategy & Design course, where you'll develop skills to participate in strategic conversations, improve cross-functional partnerships and show return on investment.Learn More
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"Good leadership really comes down to one thing. Do people want to follow you? And you can't force people to follow you. So if no one's following, you're not a leader." - Eddie IshakIn this episode of Design Chats, hosted by Rebecca Kalogeris, we delve into the world of design and its strategic impact.Our special guest is Eddie Ishak, Managing Director of UX and Product Design at JP Morgan, sheds light on the essence of leadership in design and how it doesn't necessarily correlate with one's position in an organization.Whether you are a seasoned designer or just starting, this episode is packed with insights and stories that will inspire you to think about design more strategically and consider the role of leadership in your career.Eddie discusses:What makes a good leaderWhy it's so important to connect design to the business goals and how to do itHow design maturity will impact your effectivenessUnlock Your Design Potential!Elevate the impact of your designs by enrolling in Pragmatic Institute's design courses. Our interactive and actionable courses will empower you to contribute strategically to your organization. Take advantage of this opportunity to transform your design skills.Explore Pragmatic Institute's Design Courses
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Cindy Brummer is the CEO and Creative Director of Standard Beagle Studio, an award-winning UX agency for digital B2B products that she built from the ground up. With a career beginning in TV news, she moved into UX design as the field was burgeoning and went on to teach a UX/UI bootcamp at the University of Texas at Austin. In a conversation with host Rebecca Kalogeris, Cindy talks about her winding career path, navigating interpersonal dynamics in a consulting environment, and the nuances of UX design in B2B projects – when the end user trying to complete a task might be a developer using a platform to set up an integration or a nurse completing a clinical trial. The two also discuss:Why teaching UX is like chicken sexingHow Cindy builds alignment and trust with stakeholders, and brings them into decision-making, to ensure a project is successfulHer guidance for new grads entering UX design, from reading widely to being comfortable with ambiguityWhy she believes most personas are “total crap” and how she takes a behavior-first approach to creating personasThe implications of AI on UX roles...and moreAre you a designer eager to level up your strategic impact? Pragmatic Institute's Business Strategy & Design course is tailored to empower designers with the tools and knowledge to align their user-centered work with key business objectives.Learn More Unlock the power of storytelling in design. Engage teams, create alignment, and craft compelling narratives with Pragmatic Institute's Influence Through Storytelling course.Learn More
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“Leadership is the act of driving change with others,” says Brett Macfarlane. Brett Macfarlane is an organizational consultant who focuses on leadership development for innovation and change. Based in Vancouver, he works primarily with tech and creative organizations and counts Visa, Unilever, and Apple among his past clients. (Read his Apple Watch case study.) On Design Chats, Brett goes deep on leadership as an act, not a position; his guiding principles of empathy, intent, and compassion; and insights from his work in leadership and culture development. With VP of Product Strategy Rebecca Kalogeris, Brett also discusses:The nuances of leadership within innovation environments—which are high risk, high reward, high emotion situationsBrett’s six practices for leading empowered teams, from questioning critical assumptions to seeking different perspectivesThe identity shift for a designer who gets that sought-after seat at the tableSwitching between charismatic leadership (setting vision, inspiring teams) and architectural leadership (putting systems in place, delegating tasks)How self-awareness is key to realizing change in your organization…and much moreFor more on leading from where you are and driving change through design, enroll in Business Strategy & Design. Learn how to tie design work to business value in this interactive, actionable course from Pragmatic Institute.Learn More
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Jason Grigsby is the co-founder of Cloud Four—a leading web design and development agency based in Portland, Oregon. He is also the author of Progressive Web Apps and the co-author of Head First Mobile Web. From tinkering on a Commodore 64 as a child to studying journalism in college before venturing into PR, advertising and design—and ultimately, co-founding his company—Jason’s path has led him to a deeper understanding of design principles, the needs of responsive design and how to overcome various design challenges.On Design Chats, Jason talks with host Rebecca Kalogeris about the innate complexities in responsive design and how designers and coders can collaborate to deliver optimally designed experiences for users. They also cover:The value of designers who code and coders who designTools and techniques instrumental in responsive designHow his company uses responsive design sprints“Mobile first” as a useful design constraintThe future of responsive designHow designers can get a seat at the decision-making tableWhy prototypes and performance still matter
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“Designers need to have that commercial mindset and make sure that whatever we are doing, however we're designing, we can articulate how that ladders up to those business kinds of goals.” - Venessa Bennett Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of product at Pragmatic Institute, interviews Venessa Bennett on elevating the role of UX in organizations. Venessa Bennett is the head of user experience (internal systems) at Cazoo, a U.K. retail company in the motor vehicle industry, where she's built up and developed the UX design practice. Previously, she held product and UX design roles at eporta and Vodafone. Venessa is passionate about building inclusive and diverse teams, refining design processes, coaching individuals.Venessa and Rebecca Discuss:Why designers should leverage storytelling in their workHow to talk about design work in a way that connects to business goalsThe power of partnering with product teamsWhy you need diversity in designAre you a designer eager to level up your career and demonstrate your value in strategic conversations? Pragmatic Institute's Business Strategy & Design course is tailored to empower designers like you with the tools and knowledge to align your user-centered work with key business objectives.Learn More Unlock the power of storytelling in design with Pragmatic Institute's Influence Through Storytelling course. Elevate your design strategy, engage teams, and create alignment by mastering the art of crafting compelling narratives.Here’s what you’ll learn
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“The job of UX in games tends to be like balancing the friction point. I like to say that it's making the easy things easy and the hard things hard.” - Cait Goodale Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of marketing and product strategy at Pragmatic Institute, interviews Cait Goodale on the lessons designers can learn from the gaming industry. Cait is a dynamic and passionate UX design leader with a background that spans graphic design, fashion, gaming and product design. As the former head of UX at Drest, a gaming company focused on fashion and beauty, she has explored the intersection of different industries. Cait's journey began in graphic design, and she quickly found her niche in the overlap between the fashion and gaming worlds. Her career includes stints at major companies like Microsoft, where she worked on augmented reality projects, and King, the mobile games company behind the wildly popular Candy Crush. She also has a talent for writing; she shares her insights with the design community as the author of the Thrifted Design Leadership blog. Cait and Rebecca Discuss:The role of UX and UI at gaming companies and how those roles may change depending on company sizeThe role of data in game designSegmentation in entertainment productsHow friction impacts the gaming experienceWhat "re-onboarding" is and why it’s essential to have long-term thinking about usersLearn How to Integrate Business Strategy and Your Design RoleDiscover how to align your design work with business outcomes and demonstrate its value to business objectives in Pragmatic’s Business Strategy & Design course, where you'll develop skills to participate in strategic conversations, improve cross-functional partnerships and show return on investment.Learn More
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“The thing about UX maturity is, as much as I love it, it’s so complicated. And even when you look at an organization, it’s hard to characterize a full organization. Different parts of the organization will have achieved different levels of maturity. But it’s a good tool to use at almost any elevation to help you understand where are we and where could we be going.” - Lori Landesman Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of marketing and product strategy at Pragmatic Institute, interviews Lori Landesman, a VP of user experience at Salsify, about design careers, advocacy, and UX maturity scales. Lori started her career in instructional technology. She fell into the usability world while working for Netscape, which saw its websites as instructional devices, and became a usability practitioner. Lori's career evolved as user experience design emerged, and she has since become an expert in UX design and research. She is particularly interested in UX maturity, and how it has evolved throughout her career and in organizations she has worked with. During this episode, Rebecca and Lori discuss:What the UX maturity journey might look like at a companyHow different designers might thrive in companies depending on the UX maturity levelsWhy UX professionals need to empathize with their colleagues as much as they empathize with usersLeveraging data in designLearn How to Communicate the Value of DesignIn Business Strategy & Design, you’ll learn how to align your design work with business outcomes and measure the value of design to business objectives. Gain the skills and confidence to participate in strategic conversations, improve cross-functional partnerships, and demonstrate return on investment.
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This podcast has some strong language, so if you've got any little ones around, you might want to pop in some headphones. “Not everyone needs to hear all the language or the terminology—all the fun stuff that we think makes us sound cool. They need to hear what they can relate to, and they can feel that they're not excluded. We are people designing for people. We're not people designing by theory and then trying to make it out that we're really intelligent and clever.” - Giles Airey Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of marketing and product strategy at Pragmatic Institute, interviews Giles Airey, Principal UX Designer at Evri, about convincing people that UX is how we change the world. Giles Airey is a passionate and talented designer with a background in architecture, graphic design, advertising, and UX. Throughout his career, Giles has been dedicated to understanding his clients' needs and creating compelling messages that drive action. During this episode, Rebecca and Giles discuss:Why moving from “how might we” to “what if” energizes design teams and sparks creativityWhile the user is the center of any project, why you should still think about the project by putting stakeholders first.Being excellent in your design role starts with authenticity—knowing who you are, what you’re good at and your values.A few books that aren’t related to design but might make you a better designerEnhance Your Ability to Connect Design Work to Business StrategyIn Business Strategy & Design, you’ll learn how to align your design work with business outcomes and measure the value of design in relation to business objectives. Gain the skills and confidence to participate in strategic conversations, improve cross-functional partnerships, and demonstrate return on investment.Learn More
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“There's real value to exposing yourself to other forms of thought, theories, and ways of doing things,” says Lauren Sinreich. “That can help you start connecting the dots in ways that you hadn't understood.” In this episode of Design Chats, guest host and Pragmatic Design instructor Shannon McGarity sits down with Lauren Sinreich, Principal of Design Research and Strategy at Coforma (and Pragmatic Design Advisory Board member). The two talk about how Lauren’s non-traditional design background in communications and environmental studies supported her later design roles, the power of systems thinking across design practices, showing design value in a consulting versus in-house environment, and the importance of honoring your values in your work. The two also discuss…How Lauren has applied her strategy, storytelling, and research skills in contexts like civic innovation projects, media and entertainment, and governmentHard and soft skills that enable designers to move fluidly among industriesThe common mindset that runs through service design, design strategy, and systems designThe thing she does in all projects to get on the same page with stakeholdersHer advice for designers who want to pursue service or systems designFind out more about Lauren on her website and LinkedIn. Discover our offerings for designers who want to work more strategically, from Business Strategy & Design to Influence Through Storytelling, at PragmaticInstitute.com/Design.
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“Outcome-focused is aligning digital teams with the rest of the business. So we all work together to go in the same direction. Outcomes are the results of your activities. It’s where we test and learn. We move forward with continual improvement to solve the problem. The alternative to that is the feature factory.” Host Rebecca Kalogeris interviews Neil Pleasants, head of digital product and design at Mindful Chef, about what it means to be outcome-focused and how to enhance collaboration. Neil has a background in broadcast media and eventually shifted gears to work at Amazon, where he learned the basics of personalization. Neil has worked for several large UK companies in the food industry and has found his passion in the food space with Mindful Chef. As a digital leader, he develops digital strategies and roadmaps with a customer-centric, omnichannel mindset for long term growth and engagement. Rebecca and Neil discuss:How focusing on outcomes builds trust between design teams and other departments in the organizationHow to measure if an outcome is achieved or if progress is madeBuilding alignment between product and designHow to start thinking about business outcomes not just customer outcomesHow to move toward an outcomes-focused model faster on your team and in your companiesDo You Want To Become An Outcome-Focused Designer?In Business Strategy & Design, you’ll learn how to align your design work with business outcomes and measure the value of design in relation to business objectives. Gain the skills and confidence to participate in strategic conversations, improve cross-functional partnerships, and demonstrate return on investment.Learn More
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You'll make better choices about your career if you know who you are and what matters most to you.” - Teresa Brazen In this episode, Rebecca Kalogeris interviews Pragmatic design instructor Teresa Brazen about career path opportunities in the design field. The conversation focuses on what it’s like to move into people management or become an expert in one's craft. Teresa has spent over 15 years in the design industry and works as a consultant, educator, and coach. She has helped many well-known companies such as NASA, Cisco, Clorox, and Charles Schwab. Her mission now is to help professionals expand their potential and increase their impact. Rebecca and Teresa discuss:Design career trajectoriesWhy leadership skills should be taught earlier and to everyone (even those not pursuing management)How to find your zone of geniusThe four legs of effective leadershipHow to approach management as a creative endeavorAre You A Designer Who Wants to Contribute More Strategically? The Business Strategy and Design course teaches designers how to confidently participate in strategic conversations by linking their design work to business outcomes. It also covers how to measure and communicate the value of design in relation to business objectives and how to align user-centered design with business goals to show return on investment and improve cross-functional partnerships.Learn More
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How can you lead teams that help clients achieve both customer and business goals, especially when those goals may seem at odds? Jane Austin is the Chief Experience Officer at Digitas UK. She is an expert in zero-to-one product development, scaling startups globally, and the digital transformation of legacy businesses. She has a background in philosophy and has always been passionate about design's ability to solve problems for people and businesses. Throughout her career, Jane has worked in various sectors, including government, media, and healthcare, always striving to make a positive impact through evidence-led design, technology, and collaboration. Currently, Jane works at the intersection of design and product, "using design to uncover problems then using the product lens to solve them.” Jane joins Design Chats with guest host Erin Thibeau for a conversation about the importance of understanding how businesses and organizations operate to contribute strategically as a designer. They discuss:How to lead teams that help clients support both the user and business goalsWhat Jane has learned about change management from her work as an advisorHow designers and data teams can work more closely togetherAn ideal team structure and its impact on the final stage of product maturity* * * Are you a designer who wants to collaborate better with product partners and stakeholders? Business Strategy and Design course teaches designers how to confidently participate in strategic conversations by linking their design work to business outcomes. It also covers how to measure and communicate the value of design in relation to business objectives and how to align user-centered design with business goals to show return on investment and improve cross-functional partnerships.Learn More
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“Sometimes designers feel that they are in a fight, and they approach advocacy as a fight. But you’re never going to change minds by fighting.” — Adam CutlerIn this episode of Design Chats, Pragmatic Institute VP of marketing and product strategy Rebecca Kalogeris interviews Adam Cutler, a Distinguished Designer at IBM and a founding member of IBM Design. They talk about the evolution of design at IBM, how designers can better advocate for their work, and how to build influence in an organization where design might be misunderstood. They also discuss:A six-minute activity that changes the conversation about design in a room full of non-designersIBM’s robust onboarding approach.Designing for AIEthics in AI design
Additional Resources
Business Strategy & DesignThis course provides designers with a grounding in business strategy and the tools and vocabulary of key business stakeholders. Designers can use this knowledge to align their user-centered work to the advancement of key business objectives, demonstrate design’s return on investment and contribute to strategic conversations.>> learn more
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“When you start to look at UX work as empowering everyone else in the organization to achieve their goals, you now see it through a fundamentally different lens than ‘I am here to make the thing pretty.’” Jared Spool is a UX design thought leader with more than 30 years’ experience. As Co-founder, Co-CEO, and Maker of Awesomeness at Center Centre-UIE, he and Leslie Jensen-Inman provide UX expertise with the mission of eliminating bad design. On Design Chats, Jared tells host Rebecca Kalogeris about his passion for systems design and designing the very first personal computers for business. He delves into the difference between leaders and managers and how designers can “lead in the moment” to champion their vision for a better user experience. The two also discuss:A business case in user retention: Netflix’s two-pronged strategy for improving retention and revenueThe format for a UX outcome statement he teaches all UX leadersActionable tips for informing and facilitating the best UX decisions across the organizationHow the sous vide is like a design systemWhy it’s important to create a culture of continuous learningRelated Resources:Read Lead Ujda’s guide, “2 Tools to Leverage UX Metrics for Internal Buy-in and Product Success”Learn how to lead through influence and sell a design-driven vision to cross-functional teams in Pragmatic Institute’s Influence Through Storytelling course.
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“It’s essential that whoever we work with—and in whatever way we work—we foster inclusion at every step. And when I say inclusion, accessibility is a tiny part of it…Inclusion has so many more dimensions.” Aleksandra Melnikova is an experience designer, strategist, speaker, and co-founder of Cosmic Velocity—an inclusive research, UX and service design agency in London. She joins Design Chats with guest host Erin Thibeau for a conversation touching on everything from Holacratic governance to Buddhist philosophy. Aleksandra talks about the values driving her agency’s work, the “beautiful and ever-changing” world of inclusive design and leadership as a service. Aleksandra also shares examples of activities she’s facilitated to build culture and foster diversity and inclusion—both in her team and in client engagements. Listen as Aleksandra and Erin discuss:Coming to a definition of inclusion by first discussing exclusionThree ways that practitioners pursuing inclusive design and research can set themselves up for successWhy Cosmic Velocity partners with other agencies rather than pitching against each otherLeadership models, mindsets and frameworks that reject hierarchyHow she helps designers envision a different future by detaching from day-to-day tasks and entering a play environment…and much moreFollow Aleksandra’s work on her LinkedIn page. For designers looking to contribute more strategically, drive value in their organizations, and build influence, explore Pragmatic Design’s courses.
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"The key is connecting things back to the people that you're talking to, knowing what they care about, and making sure that whatever you are asking of them or sharing with them directly connects to the things that they care about so that they can understand in the way that you understand." In this episode of Design Chats, Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of marketing for Pragmatic Institute, interviews Diana Deibel, Chief Design Officer at Grand Studio about how to approach big ambiguous problems. Diana leads teams tasked with designing human-centered products and services. She specializes in challenging problems like service design on a global scale and conversation design for behavior change. She is also the co-author of Conversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice They discuss:Strategies to better collaborate with stakeholders during the design processThe importance of Identifying all the groups impacted by design research to capture broad buy-in to prevent roadblocks from internal politicsFactors that contribute to the timeline for solving big ambiguous problemsHow internal design teams can advocate for their work to other stakeholders in the companyStrategies for internal design teams to incorporate big design projects when most of their time is spentWhy discovery work makes all the differenceIncrease Your Strategic Impact as a Designer with Pragmatic Course: Business Strategy & DesignThis course teaches you to confidently contribute to strategy conversations by tying your design work to business outcomes and ensuring you can measure and communicate how design fits into the strategic landscape.Learn More
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“We have to use the same tools that we use to solve problems to create strong relationships with our partners." José Coronado is head of Design Operations at JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the largest financial institutions in the world. Although the world of banking isn’t typically known for its design prowess, JPMorgan Chase employs more designers (around 2,000) than most of the top creative agencies globally. In building up JP Morgan's design operations practice, José has focused on creating the programs, products and services that designers need to be effective and engaged in their everyday work. On Design Chats, José talks with host Rebecca Kalogeris about design leadership, how design ops is a critical business function, and how design teams can ensure their work is integral to the bottom line. They also cover:Using design skills like empathy to improve cross-functional partnershipsWhy it's essential to hire entry-level designers and create professional development opportunities for themHow José learned from failure in his first year on the jobHow design ops can take a page from the product management handbookApplying the flexible recognition model as a design leaderHow designers can better understand the business impact of their work
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“Our clients recognize the value of UX goes beyond pixels on a page…Whether you're inside an organization or partnering, that's all you can hope for.” Dr. Kenya Oduor is a human-centered researcher, strategist, and solution designer. She is the founder and CEO of Lean Geeks, a company offering consulting, staffing, and coaching in user research and design. Trained in human factors, experimental psychology and industrial engineering, Kenya previously held roles from User Experience Engineer at IBM to Director of User Experience at LexisNexis. On Design Chats, Kenya talks with host Rebecca Kalogeris about her passion for designing solutions that are intuitive, effective, and useful. She shares how, as she advanced from a design practitioner to the founder of a consultancy, she applied her UX skills to managing teams and storytelling with clients and stakeholders. The two also discuss:Using the practitioner and strategic level lenses she’d developed to consulting organizations at different levels of design maturityFour core capabilities she looks for to build a strong UX teamThe best ways to show your cross-functional partners how to leverage the value of UXChallenges and opportunities of being a black woman in IT and tech, and how she advises people of color who she coachesDesign practitioners and researchers looking to demonstrate the value of their design work, communicate effectively with cross-functional partners, and advance in their careers should enroll in Pragmatic Institute’s new course, Business Strategy & Design. Lean GeeksLean Geeks - Solution Strategy + Design Pragmatic InstituteBusiness Strategy & Design
