Alastair Simpson shares how rejection fuels progress, the role design has played in transforming Dropbox’s work culture, and how to build effective executive-level influence.
Highlights include:
- What is the beauty of rejection?
- Why don’t you like the phrase “getting a seat at the table”?
- Why have you designed your VP of design role so broadly?
- How have you supported people to find their feet with virtual-first?
- Why do you find business conversations intriguing and empowering?
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Who is Alastair Simpson?
Alastair is the VP of Design at Dropbox, the one place to keep life organised and keep work moving. And it’s been keeping a lot of people doing just that, with over 700 million users, across 180 countries, and eight productivity-enhancing apps.
At Dropbox, Alastair leads a talented and diverse team that spans across brand, product design, writing, research, and operations. He is also working with other company leaders to apply human-centred design internally, designing the future of work for Dropbox’s employees.
Before joining Dropbox, Alastair was a Head of Design at Atlassian, where he helped to scale the design team from 20 people in 2014 to over 300 people in 2020. During his time, Alastair led the design of a number of products, including Trello, Jira, and Confluence.
As someone who believes that design leaders are business leaders, Alastair has generously shared the learnings from his ascent up Mount Business, speaking to fellow designers at events such as the DesignOps Summit, Bureau of Digital, and the Leading Design Conference.
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Find Alastair here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastairsimpson/
Medium: https://medium.com/@alanstairs
Website: https://clunky.com.au/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alanstairs
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
