Michael Leon: How skateboarding prepared him for Nike, Patagonia, and Sonos

#020: Margaret Stewart: Scaling through storytelling: As organizations grow, they tend to think in terms of processes and data, and although those elements are vital to scale, teams sometimes lose sight of the why. Key to scaling is building an infrastructure that supports a company’s core mission. In... by Design Better

37 min listen

#011: Lynsey Thornton: going with the org-change flow: Over the last 10 years, Shopify has grown from a scrappy 5-person startup to a team of more than 3,000 across five locations. Scaling a company that fast takes a lot of talented people—and Lynsey Thornton is one of them. As Shopify’s VP of UX and... by Design Better

39 min listen

#006: Michael Leon: from skate punk to creative force: How do you go from being a self-professed skate punk, to a design director at Nike, creative director at Patagonia, and land as the global creative director for Sonos? As a creative force, Michael Leon has worked with some of the most product driven... by Design Better

43 min listen

#001: Irene Au: scaling design at Google and beyond: Google could now be considered a product driven company, but it wasn’t always that way. For many years Google’s engineering-led culture cherished efficiency over user experience. Irene Au arrived at a pivotal moment in the company’s history, and... by Design Better

35 min listen

#008: Jake Knapp: beyond the Sprint: If we asked you to name a recent book that’s really changed how product teams address sticky challenges, there’s a good chance Jake Knapp’s Sprint would be at the top of your list. Since publishing and popularizing the process, design sprints... by Design Better

60 min listen

#009: Christian Madsbjerg: exploring how humans experience the world: In today’s tech-driven economy, it seems like it can be hard to justify the value of a traditional liberal arts education. But given the speed at which AI-driven advancements are taking over traditional jobs—even technical ones—perhaps a better... by Design Better

55 min listen

Julie Zhuo: Learning to manage like a leader: Listen as Julie Zhuo, VP of Product Design at Facebook and author of The Making of a Manager, recalls some of her earliest professional experiences at one of the fastest growing companies on the planet. She reveals how she got her start and grew to be... by Design Better

54 min listen

Season 3 Special Preview: The next season of the Design Better podcast is nearly here. Listen to a special preview of the upcoming season which focuses on the impact and challenges of the connected workflow. We sat down with some incredible design leaders from Facebook,... by Design Better

3 min listen

#005: Alex Schleifer: a mission to belong anywhere: Airbnb’s mission is both simple and powerful: to help create a world where you can belong anywhere. Alex Schleifer, Airbnb’s head of design, fully embraces this mission. To create the products that make the Airbnb experience so welcoming and... by Design Better

52 min listen

#010: Mia Blume: design, or be designed: “Will I lose my creativity? Will I be stuck in meetings all day?” Those are common concerns for any individual contributor transitioning to a managerial role—even experienced product leaders like Mia Blume. Luckily, Mia’s impressive career... by Design Better

44 min listen

#017: Maria Giudice: DesignOps, diversity, and design making a difference: Rallying around a shared vision is one of the biggest challenges for design teams operating at scale. So how can you foster that vision and bring people together to execute it? In this episode, Hot Studio Founder and former Autodesk VP of Experience... by Design Better

55 min listen

#007: Laura Martini: getting to the right finish line: If there’s anyone we’ve interviewed on the DesignBetter.Co Podcast so far that really embodies the product-driven concept, it’s Laura Martini. Not only does she have a background in both design and engineering, but she also has a keen product... by Design Better

42 min listen

Rewind: Irene Au explains the secrets to scaling design teams: For many years, Google’s engineering-led culture cherished efficiency over user experience. Irene Au arrived at a pivotal moment in the company’s history and helped shape the way Google’s products clearly value design today. In this... by Design Better

36 min listen

#002: David Kelley: creative confidence and aligning teams: David Kelley doesn’t like to claim to have come up with the term design thinking, even though a most people would say he did. But regardless of who coined it, as founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school he has been one of the most influential... by Design Better

52 min listen

#012: Meredith Black: building DesignOps dream teams: A lot of companies are investing more in design. As they do, the organization scales. As it scales, it has to operationalize, become more efficient, and plug into the rest of the company—but what makes all that possible? In this episode,... by Design Better

41 min listen

#019: Kim Williams: Creating, scaling, and championing design systems: A design system helps deliver a unified experience for the end user, no matter what the medium. But it also means a cohesive internal experience as well. Design systems unite teams across time and space, bring designers and engineers together through... by Design Better

40 min listen

Amazon’s Joanna Peña-Bickley: Bringing more diversity into leadership: Joanna Peña-Bickley has had an amazing arc to her design leadership career: from Chief Creative Officer at Matter Worldwide and IBM, to her current role as Head of Research and Design for Alexa Devices at Amazon, Joanna has always sought to design... by Design Better

64 min listen

#014: TS Balaji: representing design with a multidisciplinary approach: Design leaders spend a lot of energy trying to get a seat at the table. It’s an ongoing process—and it’s tough to keep design involved over time. What questions should be asked along the way, and what business language can design leaders use? In... by Design Better

50 min listen

#013: Diana Mounter: from design silos to design system: Design systems give product designers and developers reusable, interchangeable components to make the design process efficient and repeatable. They’re a critical part of scaling—so why build everything from scratch when you can plug in pre-built... by Design Better

41 min listen

#016: Megan Quinn: making design-led choices to scale with better outcomes: Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be part of fast-growing, design-led companies like Slack, Medium, or even InVision? Every team has challenges with scaling—and it turns out those challenges share many common traits when you peek behind the... by Design Better

51 min listen

#003: Dan Winger: building the future at LEGO: If you’re anything like us, playing with LEGOs was a foundational part of your childhood, and a big part of the reason you got interested in design. And given the arc of their history, it is clear that LEGO is a product-driven company: their... by Design Better

37 min listen

Journey into the connected workflow: An update on our latest season by Design Better

4 min listen

#015: Meriah Garrett: Scaling with empathy and intention: When companies start scaling design, the emphasis is sometimes on getting more shipped—but what if the first deliverable was a balanced team instead of a new feature? USAA’s Chief Design Officer Meriah Garrett has a unique approach to... by Design Better

47 min listen

Bob Baxley: What it takes to build a connected workflow: What do Yahoo, Apple, and Pinterest have in common? Silicon Valley design vet Bob Baxley. With extensive design leadership experience under his belt, Bob knows a thing or two about bridging the gaps between teams to help champion a connected... by Design Better

53 min listen

How to run remote design sprints and design reviews: Richard Banfield and Alison Rand: In this bonus episode, we’re once more focused on remote teams, and more specifically on best practices for facilitating remote design sprints, building trust between teams in a remote environment, and running effective critiques and design reviews... by Design Better

54 min listen

Indeed’s Quinton Larson on being adaptable and working thoughtfully: Quinton Larson is a design leader who has consistently brought thoughtful leadership into the companies where he works. In this episode we speak with Quinton about his prior work at IDEO and eBay, his involvement with Indeed’s Job Seeker Journey... by Design Better

43 min listen

#004: Albert Lee: kickstart a design transformation: Albert Lee has had an amazing arc to his career. From his beginnings as a wine-steward at Chez Panisse, to working at Frank Gehry’s architecture studio, and on to the role of Associate Partner at IDEO and now Design Partner at NEA, the nation’s... by Design Better

47 min listen

Special Episode - Jake Knapp - Make Time: What if you could set aside a distraction-free space to accomplish one meaningful thing in your life each day? How might that change your relationships, hobbies, work, or mental wellbeing? In a special episode of the DesignBetter.Co Podcast, we talk... by Design Better

54 min listen

#018: Vas Natarajan: operationalizing design for business success: There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to scaling design, but there are similarities between fast-growing companies that prime them for lasting success. In this episode, Accel Partners’ Vas Natarajan talks about effective ways design leaders... by Design Better

32 min listen

Airbnb’s Benjamin Evans on the power of inclusive design: Benjamin Evans, Inclusive Design Lead for Airbnb, is part of a new kind of problem solvers tackling issues like racism, sexism, and bias in digital product design. In this episode of the Design Better Podcast, Eli and Aarron chat with Benjamin... by Design Better

50 min listen

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Michael Leon: How skateboarding prepared him for Nike, Patagonia, and Sonos

Michael Leon: How skateboarding prepared him for Nike, Patagonia, and Sonos

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