What are the key milestones on your path to leadership?
I have often been asked are you a product designer or a creative director or a business strategist? And the answer I give is yes.
I have been blessed with a long career. From my earliest job as a graphic designer to a web developer to a product designer for hardware and software to service design to tech companies, to advertising to leading business strategy through design and now I’m in my third act as professor, writer and leading design teams.
I’ve always been interested in asking and answering the big questions; Where is the future going and what do we need to do to stay relevant in that future? How do we meet our customers and potential customers where they are at and where they will be at? We have the technical capability to make the future whatever we want, so what do we want to do with this opportunity to make it a better future for everyone?
What are the key challenges you have faced as a leader?
I would say the big challenge I have faced, that I suspect many others have faced as well, is the misconception of what a leader in the tech and design industry looks like.
In the early days I remember being the only woman on the tech team. I was often assumed to be an administrative assistant. You didn’t see women in technical roles, much less a Latina woman like myself. And, sadly, that hasn’t changed much. The amount of women in leadership is dismal and the number of female women of color is almost microscopic.
While more women than ever are entering and graduating engineering and design schools, they don’t always stay in the industry. I have a suspicion that is because as a woman, particularly women of color, no matter how much you have achieved, you always have to keep proving yourself to people who don’t see your talents and capabilities.
Another issue is ageism. It’s real. Women have always been dealing with this. And it’s a shame because it’s true that with age comes wisdom and we need that wisdom in the industry more than ever before.
Describe your leadership style / what are your core values as a leader?
Too often we focus on where people can improve and focus on fixing weaknesses. While I think it’s noble to work on your weaknesses, the best work we do in our lives is when we find our groove, that place where we can play up our strengths. I love it when people on my teams or students I work with find where they shine and get excited about what they are good at.
When it comes to design especially, you have to be on fire. It works best when your heart and soul are all in on what you are making. People can tell when something has been created by someone who truly believes in it. The strongest designers find that fire. Great actors do this by finding the essence of their part, and a really good designer will entrench themselves in the user, understand the heart of the system and understand it deeply.
What advice do you have for women who are trying to establish themselves as leaders?
I see a lot of women with imposter syndrome, who doubt themselves, to them I say, the first step to changing how you are received by others, is to change what you think about yourself. If you act like you belong where you are, other people will most likely treat you like you belong there. This requires a mental shift. The great part is acceptance is contagious. When you accept yourself - you are more willing to accept others too and it creates this really wonderful circle of honesty and understanding.
How would you advise organisations who want to foster diversity and gender equity in leadership?
There are two key things to think about. This first is attracting women to the field. To attract diversity you have to show diversity. Women in public facing leadership roles make a huge difference. People are attracted when they see other people like them in a space, especially when women see themselves represented. They know they’re not invisible. They're not sneaking in somewhere - they belong.
Now let’s talk about the second thing - other kinds of diversity, because this is really the root of the unspoken problem with the tech industry today which is a lack of truly, creative, out of the box thinking. The broader thing I want to emphasize is that it’s not only lack of racial diversity that is the problem. I know we need more racial and gender diversity, but equally important is socio-economic diversity. The tech and design world is designed around a specific socio-economic niche that often looks to hire only people that attended the same schools, worked for the same companies, or have a similar cultural background to the people that they already have. This is a huge missed opportunity for everyone. The future needs more diversity in ideas, life experiences and motivations. We need more resilience and creativity to address the very real challenges we have ahead.
I have really devoted the last few years of my work to creating systems and experiences that are equitable and accessible. It is a great but rewarding challenge to transform complex policies into navigable, helpful information and take disparate and separate systems and create smooth end user experiences for the public and, importantly, the staff that serves the public.
It is my wish that more companies understand that equity is not only the right thing to do - but it’s also good for business. I always wonder if companies realize how many opportunities they are missing out on because they are fixated on catering to only a small sliver of the population.
What advice would you give businesses navigating times of uncertainty?
Crisis is an opportunity to really step back and consider what value your business truly provides. The question all leaders need to ponder right now is what can you deliver that people need and how can you do it with authenticity and excellence. This is not a time for frivolity, indeed it never was, we are facing a massive shift in the economy, culture and most importantly, our climate crisis. We all need to assess if we are contributing to creating a better, more balanced and thriving future or are we just mindlessly focused on growth at any cost.
How are you currently planning for the future and leading others into it?
I believe the global pandemic will trigger a brutal and potentially prolonged recession. Although the pandemic is not the quintessential “Black Swan” event Nicolas Talibis talks about in his book of the same name. But, it is a societal punctuation mark that will have effects for years to come. To some of us who pay attention to cultural signals and economic fundamentals, we’ve seen this coming for a very long time. The 2020 pandemic has only sped up the looming crisis our credit based economy and our artificially low interest rates were hiding all along.
We might not see it yet, but the events of this year will inherently change so many things about our daily life. One could say it’s hard to predict what might happen, but if you are in the habit of paying attention to historic patterns and demographics it’s not too hard to imagine where the right opportunities for business to thrive are. In the economy we are facing, resilience, access and equitable systems are what we will need to get us through. We will need the courage to pursue economic justice to turn this around. The economy will eventually bounce back, but I hope the pandemic and the economic downturn will teach us all that we actually need less than we thought we needed and excess is not the answer.
