What are the key milestones on your path to leadership?
I am fuseproject’s VP of Design, and the Discipline Lead of our Industrial Design practice. I was previously the Director of Industrial Design, but the title didn’t seem to quite fit the role as our work extends so far beyond industrial design and includes the whole ecosystem.
I studied industrial design in China and also worked as a part-time designer at a consultancy. I practiced both industrial design and graphic design. While we were required to have a strong sense of aesthetics, it felt like we were always playing catch-up to our competitors. I decided to come to the United States to study for a MFA at the Academy of Art University. During my studies, one of the classes was sponsored by LUNAR Design, now McKinsey. The founder, Jeff Smith, saw my work for an electric scooter design project and offered me an internship where I had the opportunity to work with big brands. It was a dream come true for me. After graduation, I joined fuseproject as the 15th employee. Back then, it was really like a startup. We worked long hours on lots of exciting projects. The team was close and tight knit. I have a lot of nostalgia about that time.
What are the key challenges you have faced as a leader?
From the beginning, at fuseproject we saw an opportunity to grow the studio from centering around one discipline (industrial design) into a dynamic, multidisciplinary space. As designers, we understood how critical it was to look at design challenges holistically, particularly with an intent to integrate all the relevant disciplines. Industrial design has to consider all the complexities and nuances of the user experience in order to be successful. If you hone in on only one area, you’re not able to execute in a thoughtful and comprehensive way. So that’s what we have been doing over the past six years.
Finding work-life balance has been personally challenging. There were difficult times as a working mom. I had my first child young and at the time I was growing my career and advancing as a junior. The work-life balance was quite tough. I remember needing to take my first child to daycare at 8 AM, and then picking her up at 6 PM. But the work needed more time. As a designer, there's always more iterating. So I’d pick her up, go home, prepare dinner, send her to bed, and then back on the computer. Working with a young team, you have to explain to them, “I'm a mom and this is my responsibility. I need to leave.” I work extremely hard, but also believe the time that you spend with your kids is very important. So before they go to sleep, I try to be 100% focused on them, rather than on email or text messages. Obviously, that’s hard sometimes.
Describe your leadership style / what are your core values as a leader?
I am committed to my team and spend a lot of time thinking about them. As a discipline leader, you need to consider how to support them as they grow. This is top of mind. A lot of the time, I’m also thinking about which project is right for which individual. I want them to thrive in their careers, and they need the right opportunities in order to do so. I also think about how to staff projects in a way that people are able to learn from one another. That’s really important in a healthy team ecosystem.
We spend more time ‘at work’ than ‘at home’, so it's very important the work culture supports an environment where everyone can belong. Since stepping into a leadership role, I've been focused on culture and how to create a positive and healthy-minded culture. But ultimately, as a designer, I will still make sure there is enough time to do the creative work. For some projects, I will spend more time actually sketching and brainstorming with the team. We still want to do what drew us to our work in the first place. We have to feed our passions.
What advice do you have for women who are trying to establish themselves as leaders?
Mentorship is key. Learning through projects, learning through creative people. What I haven’t had much in my own career, but believe would have been really beneficial, is to have had a mentor. Someone you can talk to, learn from, and lean on. So I built the system for my team, a mentorship program that has been really beneficial for them.
For me English as a second language has always been somewhat of a barrier for me. To be able to articulate myself, express ideas to clients, and speak publicly--these are major hurdles when English is not your first language. I practice daily at fuseproject with coworkers. I look for people who are great communicators and I paid more attention during their phone calls and meetings to learn from them.
What do you think about equality in the workplace?
There will always be bias in the workplace, and it’s not just about gender. Let’s not forget the importance of being open to different perspectives. A team’s greatest advantage is its diversity of ideas. Not just between men and women, but from culture, age, economic and social status--all of it. The best and most universal design solutions are always rooted in their ability to serve as many people as possible.
I learned early on the power of not backing yourself into a corner. This means that you must first and foremost believe that you are capable, competent, and full of intention. Set the expectation within yourself that all is possible, and believe that you have the will to succeed. Once your mind is made up, it’s easier to see through the negative opinions of others. Then, we educate. We put in the work to show them just how wrong they were.
I was fortunate that as a first-generation and only-child, my parents didn't raise me with gender limitations. They wanted me to grow in as many ways as possible, rather than doing things that were traditionally meant for women. I can design anything. I can deliver, whether it’s electric scooters, sports gear, whatever.
Within the industrial design discipline, there's an imbalance already. Many women designers grew up in an environment without a gender-balanced perspective. I met a young woman who was introduced as one of the top students of her school. When I went to look at her portfolio, there were these designs for outdoor camping gear. And they were very masculine. So I asked, “Why is this design so masculine?” And she said, “Well, in this category, everything's like that.” So I said to her, “As a female designer, you can bring a neutral perspective. I’m not saying that you have to make it feminine. But if you make it more neutral, it will also appeal to female customers, to be able to use this gear.” She was fully capable, but her environment has cultivated a bias. Beyond gender preference, designers work to deliver a comprehensive solution that centers on solving the user’s issues and providing a good experience. Then, make it elegant.
It’s everyone’s responsibility--not just women to women--to create an environment of diversity and learning. This is about self-awareness and the inherent biases we all have (from our upbringing, our education, our background) to look inwards and reflect upon how we can better create equity, diversity, and a level playing field.
How are you currently planning for the future and leading others into it?
While this is certainly an unprecedented time for all of us, it is also going to create opportunity. There are two important parts to this:
The first is that as a member of the leadership team at fuseproject, I want to remind the studio and all our collaborators that even in unpredictable and challenging times, we can still find uplifting and inspiring ways to continue creating and doing the work we love. Innovation will always be central to what we do—it defines us as designers. We’ve found new ways to stay in touch with one another, to see each other (virtually), and even share some personal aspects of our lives that are normally glossed over. I deeply enjoy seeing my colleagues’ children, pets, and family members during conference calls. I’m reminded so much of how we are all the same. There are good and bad days, emotional ones and happy ones. It’s a small—but very important—silver lining to know that we’re all in this together.
The second part of this is about coming together to look closely at the industries that need innovating. In some ways, this pandemic has levelled the playing field. Now, we are reminded of just how reliant every single human being is on these heroes who work in healthcare. They need and deserve to have equipment that is high-functioning, fool-proof, and readily available. If we are to prevent history from repeating itself, the entire ecosystem has to completely evolve—from design down to manufacturing. We are constantly reinventing lifestyle, education, fitness, and wellness products. But now we must remember there are mission critical industries that represent pillars of our society and economy. It’s time to put a magnifying glass on the very type of work that at this moment, we can truly call “social impact design”.
What advice do you have for women who want to share their ideas publicly? How can women amplify their influence?
On one hand, I'm a shy person. I'm a doer, as an industrial designer. What I like is sitting down and sketching on paper, making mock ups, figuring things out on the computer. I'm not a talker, naturally. But I see there's a need to communicate, talk about ideas, and be able to speak about the things that are important for other people to learn, to know. So I push myself to find the opportunity to practice. When it comes to public speaking I started small, like speaking in the office, with all-hands as a starting point. And then speaking in schools, talking to the students. Then a little bigger, speaking with other professionals, designers, and business owners. It’s easier to start small.
Also, what I’ve learned is, once you’ve done one speaking engagement, it gives you a really good foundation to prepare for the next one. You need to really work on the storytelling, because when you stand on the stage, you're speaking from 20 minutes to 1 hour. Last time at Denver Design Week, I spoke for one, very long hour.
Speaking for shorter amounts of time is a totally different kind of challenge. I spoke at the RISE Conference in Hong Kong, where I spoke about AI and robotics for about 20 minutes. I had to practice a lot to make sure my sentences were clean and to the point. So that was a different kind of practice compared to speaking for one hour, where you have to make sure that there's enough content and the storytelling is interesting. You also need to make sure the audience stays connected.
