Jon Fukuda, an experienced consultant in enterprise DesignOps, discusses the big lie of enterprises' adoption of DesignOps, the disconnect between IT and Design, framing the value of DesignOps to customers, cultural readiness for DesignOps, and the value of design in organizations. He shares his experiences at Limina and AddThis, as well as insights on breaking down silos and optimizing efficiency through design operations.

Satyam Kantamneni, a design professional and managing partner of UXReactor, discusses the value of design, the difference between design as a skill and a profession, and the challenges faced by design leaders. He emphasizes the importance of measuring the impact of design and understanding its value in the tech industry.

Irene Au shares some of the learnings from her stellar career, the early life experiences that have helped her to succeed, and the importance of sweating the right stuff. Highlights include: What role does the C-Suite play in a company’s ability to realise good design? How did you navigate the strong points of view of founder executives? What did you see in the designers you’ve hired that wasn’t in those you didn’t? Why do design leaders need to carefully choose their stakeholders? Why do you wish the job title UX Designer would disappear? ====== Who is Irene Au? Irene is a Design Partner at Khosla Ventures where she works with early-, mid- and late-stage startup CEOs to help them realise the value of design through better methods, practices, processes, leadership and talent. Irene has been one of Silicon Valley’s most successful design executives and has played an important role in shaping and elevating design within several influential technology companies. She was the VP of Design at Udacity, where she helped the leadership team to find product-market fit and to define the company’s strategy, vision, mission, and values. Irene also led the design and research efforts for the company’s first product offering. Irene was also the Director of User Experience (Global Head) at Google for nearly 6 years. During her time there, Irene scaled and led the design team to over 350 people and transformed the way the famously engineering-driven company valued and operationalised design. Her success at Google was in part enabled by her prior experience as VP of User Experience at Yahoo!, where for four years she was the design leader responsible for the company’s user experience across all of its products and design infrastructure efforts. ====== Find Irene here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ireneau/ Medium: https://medium.com/@ireneau Twitter: https://twitter.com/ireneau Website: https://ireneau.com/ ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Sara Wachter-Boettcher inspires us through her actions, reminds us why it’s important to see shades of grey, and helps us to design the careers we actually want. Highlights include: Is it career limiting to enforce a work/life boundary? Do we have to accept that companies exist to serve shareholders? Should we ever sacrifice our wellbeing to solve important problems? Who or what inspired you to become a feminist leader? Why are some people uncomfortable with life’s shades of grey? ====== Who is Sara Wachter-Boettcher? Sara is the CEO of Active Voice, a leadership development company that’s on a mission to make work culture better for everyone - in particular those of us working in design and tech.  Through Active Voice, Sara helps organisations - like LinkedIn, Etsy, and Mastercard - to build radical and courageous leadership practices, the kind needed for today’s world. She does this through 1-on-1 coaching, workshops and the facilitation of strategy sessions. Before starting Active Voice in 2020, Sara was the Principal of Rare Union, a content strategy and user experience consultancy. Sara also ran a feminist leadership community and event series called Collective Strength, and hosted a podcast for feminists called Strong Feelings.  She is the author of three influential books, Content Everywhere: Strategy and Structure for Future-Ready Content, Design for Real Life, and Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech. ====== Find Sara here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saraboettcher/ Medium: https://medium.com/nice-work-from-active-voice Website: https://www.sarawb.com/ ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

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? ====== 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. ====== 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 ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Jeff Gothelf shares his experiences travelling with the circus, why humility is essential for innovation, and the role design plays in breaking through local maximums. Highlights include: Why did you join the circus after graduating college? How do you help executives to embrace uncertainty? What is keyhole decision making and why is it a problem? What role should design play in breaking local maximums? Why do leaders need strong opinions that they’re willing to change? ====== Who is Jeff Gothelf? Jeff is the Founder and Principal of of Gothelf.co, the company through which he provides independent coaching, training, and consulting that helps large organisations to create cultures of innovation, operate with agility and build better products. He is the co-author of two influential books on modern product, “Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams”, and “Sense & Respond: How Successful Organisations Listen to Customers and Create New Products”. And Jeff’s most recent book, published in 2020, “Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You”, gives people the tools to design and develop fulfilling careers that are a continuous source of opportunity. Before becoming self-employed, Jeff was a principal UI designer at AOL, a user experience manager at Webtrends, an associate director of interaction design at Publicis Modem, and a director of user experience at The Ladders. Jeff is a generous contributor to the field. Alongside his books, he’s spoken at many conferences of note, including Mind the Product, USI, and TedX, and he has appeared as a guest on over 100 podcasts. ====== Find Jeff here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gothelf/ Website: https://jeffgothelf.com/ Blog: https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jboogie Jeff’s books: Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams - https://a.co/d/792MZQe Sense & Respond:  How Successful Organisations Listen to Customers and Create New Products - https://a.co/d/etS7R9K Forever Employable:  How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You -  https://a.co/d/8Q0eILV ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Shelley Evenson unpacks the challenges of designing for corporate innovation, the dark-side of design thinking, and how AI may help and hinder us. Highlights include: Why shouldn’t big corporates try to emulate startups? How is that we’re not designing experiences for people? What reservations do you have about corporate design thinking? How do we know if AI is providing us with accurate information? What role does timing play in the success or failure of innovation? ====== Who is Shelley Evenson? Shelley is a Managing Director of Accenture Song, a global customer experience consulting group that brings together data science, design, technology and marketing to deliver transformative insights and scalable technical solutions. Prior to Accenture Song, Shelley was the Group Director of Organisational Evolution at Fjord and she also worked as an Experience Researcher and Research Manager at Facebook, and as a Principal User Experience Design Manager at Microsoft. Before Big Tech, Shelley was as an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design, where she lectured in interaction design and built a closer relationship between industry and the schools of design, business, and HCI. Shelley is a co-founder and former advisory board member of the Service Design Network, a global community of service design professionals.  She has served as the co-editor of Touchpoint, the Journal of Service Design, and is a contributor to several books and papers on service design, interaction design and design strategy. In 2010 Shelley was recognised by ACAD as a Woman Innovator in Design. ====== Find Shelley here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelley-evenson/ ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Laith Ulaby shares his colourful journey from academia to applied, how frameworks articulate and influence thinking, and the role of power in practice. Highlights include: What is reflexivity and how is it useful for researchers? Should there be an independent body to oversee UX research? Has the democratisation of UX research been a positive thing? What are the dangers of using frameworks in shaping thinking? How has seeing yourself as a facilitator transformed your practice? ====== Who is Laith Ulaby? Laith is the Director of Insights at Webflow, a platform where people can design, build, and launch powerful visual websites without any coding experience. In his role, Laith leads the organisation responsible for data science, user research and insights operations. Before joining Weblow, Laith was the Director of User Research & Market Research at Udemy, an online learning platform with over 60 million users, across more than 190 countries. There he helped to develop the strategy for both the B2C and B2B business lines.  Laith has also held several other positions, including at Uber as a UX Research Manager, and as a User Experience Researcher at both Google and AnswerLab. A generous spirit, Laith maintains his connection to the academic world by lecturing grad students at UC Berkley’s School of Information Science. He is also a volunteer mentor for UX Coffee Hours. ====== Find Laith here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laith-ulaby/ Medium: https://medium.com/@laith.ulaby UXPA Code of Professional Conduct: https://uxpa.org/uxpa-code-of-professional-conduct/ Insights Association Code of Standards: https://www.insightsassociation.org/Resources/Code-of-Standards ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Tom Greever speaks to the heart of articulating design decisions, becoming someone worth following, and making yourself an influential force for good design. Highlights include: Is it true that you occasionally wear costumes to meetings? What is it important for leaders to remember? Should you ever tell someone that you disagree with them? How can we get difficult stakeholders onboard? Why is important to be intentional in your relationships? ====== Who is Tom Greever? Tom is a Senior Director of Product Design at Indigo, an agricultural company that improves farmers profitability, environmental sustainability and consumer health, through the use of nature-based and digital technologies. Tom has also previously been the VP of Product & Design at Handled, where he led the product strategy and CX teams who were creating category-leading software for the home services and moving industry. Before Handled, Tom was the Director of UX and then VP of UX and Design at Bitovi, a remote-first digital consultancy where he led teams to deliver new web app experiences for companies such as Apple, Walmart, Levi Strauss and Lowe’s.  A celebrated and experienced product and design leader, Tom is best known for his influential book, “Articulating Design Decisions”, a book that has helped tens of thousands of designers around the world to achieve greater career success and greater impact through design. ====== Find Tom here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomgreever/ Website: https://tomgreever.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomgreever ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Noam Segal shares his early experiences working for the Israeli military, whether democratisation has been positive for UX, and the importance of telling a good story. Highlights include: What makes for an impactful research story? Why is NPS the worst thing to happen to UX research? Has the democratisation of UX research been a good thing? Has UX become less innovative since becoming part of enterprise? Why is it important for people in tech to believe in magic? ====== Who is Noam Segal? Noam is a Research Manager at Meta, where he’s building a modern, progressive, and impactful research team to support product people working on Facebook’s newsfeed. He also leads several key initiatives within Meta’s Qualitative Centre of Excellence. Before Meta, Noam was the Head of Health Research at Twitter. He has also been a Director of User Research at Wealthfront, a Product Research Manager at Intercom and a Lead Experience Researcher at Airbnb. Outside of his day-job, Noam mentors UXers on ADPList and UX Coffee Hours and shares his knowledge on the Learners platform and on Maven, where he hosts two courses: “The Missing Foundations of UX Research” and “The Research Storyteller”. Noam is also active on his YouTube channel, UX Quests, where he hosts a series of conversations with UX research leaders about UX research. ====== Find Noam here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noamsegal/ Website: http://uxquests.com/ Store: https://uxquests.shop/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/noamseg YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UXQuests ADPList: https://adplist.org/mentors/noam-segal ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/