Roots

Jake Nuñez is an experienced Senior Product Designer at Maya, focusing on enhancing the merchant experience by designing their Business products. He brings over 9 years of diverse work experience in fields such as Digital Marketing, Graphic Design, Art Direction, and User Experience. Additionally, he is dedicated to mentoring aspiring designers and equipping them for the industry through his invol...

Frances To is an Independent Designer who specializes in creating bespoke websites, digital products, and interactive stories for fast-growing companies. Previously, she co-founded UX+ University, a learning platform that empowers career shifters to become User Experience professionals in 16 weeks. She also designed digital products at First Circle and Maya. Since the start of Frances’ independent...

Jarell is an intermediate product designer currently working on enterprise software for Copperleaf who helps utility companies make better decisions that make a better world. On the side he volunteers at ADPList and BCIT as a mentor, regularly hosts or speaks at local meetups and events, and started a local design community in Vancouver on April 2020 with over 600 members worldwide for casual bi-w...

Jen Enrique is a Staff Product Designer at Slack. With over 14 years experience, she has worked at agencies, startups, and big companies. Today, she champions building design culture and teaching designers how to self-advocate at work. As a 2nd generation child of immigrants, she had to learn how to navigate corporate cultures without insider expertise or formal mentors. In the last year, she has...

Ray Sison is a Senior Design Director for Product Design for SNKRS at Nike, designing for a niche community of sneakerheads. Before that, he was the Head of Design at Clarity Money, which was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2018. He was previously a Design Director at both Work&Co and R/GA, and worked on top brands like Google, Apple, Facebook, Playstation, Fortnite, Aesop, Nike+, Nike Basketball, Sa...

Pia Zaragoza is a creative technologist, researcher, and educator exploring the current use cases and future possibilities of emerging technologies. She is the former Vice President of Accessibility Research and Insights at JP Morgan Chase and is currently a Presidential Innovation Fellow. Pia’s Google Home once told her that the meaning of life is all about finding a way. In this episode, we talk...

Leonardo Raymundo is a content designer and content strategist from Seattle, Washington—where he was born and raised. He currently works at Orca Pacific, a MightyHive company, as the lead content strategist, helping some of the leading brands optimize their content across multiple eCommerce platforms such as Amazon, Target, and Walmart.  In his spare time, he mentors up-and-coming UX writers throu...

Ian Sagabaen is a UX Designer at Google, building Google Cloud's enterprise tools. If you've ever been described as shy and need that nudge to break out of your comfortable shell, Ian’s travel stories might motivate you. He started as the quiet kid from San Jose, when on a whim challenged himself to live on the other side of the world, then applied his newfound courage he discovered while abroad t...

Francis Estrada is an Interaction Designer at Google, currently working on YouTube Music Ads. As a fan of taking the scenic route, Francis gained experience working in marketing, software quality assurance, and web design before finding his way into UX. Over the years, he's picked up a side hustle as a UX instructor, having taught both undergraduates and adult learners at several institutions incl...

Krizia Lim is a Senior Graphic Designer at Kalibrr by day, a Freelance Illustrator and Designer by night, and a photographer, web designer, and more in between. She was previously an intern at Pepper.ph and an art director at Elevation Partners, where she worked with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf — developing her interest in designing for F&B brands. She believes that her love for design, food, music, ga...

Mike Walkusky is a Senior Content Designer at Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, Mint, and QuickBooks. Prior to joining Intuit, he was the editor-in-chief of http://EDM.com and a sports journalist for Bleacher Report. Mike lives in San Diego, California with his wife, daughter, and three dogs. He loves spending time with his family, discovering new music, basketball, sneakers, Asian food, K-dramas, an...

Riel Mosqueriola is a Product Designer at LiveMore, a personal development app whose goal is to provide the right tools and knowledge in achieving one's personal goals . Previously, she worked in Grab, designing for GrabFood and GrabExpress. She greatly believes that in order to get better in anything you do, you should never be afraid to ask. She is currently based in Singapore, where in apart fr...

Alysa Trinidad is a Senior Visual Designer at Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, QuickBooks and Mint, based in Mountain View, California. As a California native, she grew up in nearby Wine Country where her love for art, music and digital media led her to a fulfilling career path as a multidisciplinary designer. She has lived many creative lives, from leading the very first social media department at...

Sheryl Cababa is the Vice President of Strategy at Substantial, a design and technology consultancy in Seattle, and has more than two decades of experience as a multi-disciplinary design practitioner. With a background in human-centered design research and strategy, she has worked as a design consultant at companies like Artefact, frog, and Adaptive Path. She is an international speaker and facili...

Rannie Teodoro, Ph. D., is the Head of Design at Thumbtack, an online marketplace that matches customers with local service professionals. She is one of the few researchers in the world leading a design organization, including the Product Design, Experience Research, and Creative teams. Prior to Thumbtack, she was leading a team of UX researchers at Facebook. Her work has informed strategies for n...

Ed Salvaña is a Product Designer at Facebook. After long stints on Facebook Ads, Instagram and Events, he now designs experiences for new platforms and devices at Facebook Reality Labs. While growing up, he thought he would become a priest, a pilot, or even a scientist. He ended up becoming an animator, engineer, then eventually a product designer. He still has trouble explaining what he does to h...

Niki Torres is the founder, producer, and host of Chief Best Friends, a podcast helping women succeed in work and business through meaningful friendships. She also writes BFFs, a bi-weekly email for Asia’s female founders, bringing together resources on growing a business, cultivating friendships, and seeking opportunities for funding. Niki has 12+ years of experience in communications, growth, an...

Francis Alturas is the Co-founder and CDO of Abstract Digital—a digital product design agency with expertise in doing design sprints for venture-backed seed stage startups in Southeast Asia. He worked with brands like 500 Startups, Rocket Internet, The World Bank, and The Presidential Communications Office. He enjoys designing interfaces, writing frontend code, and co-organizing local design event...

Erika Sibal is a Senior Designer and UX Lead at ExxonMobil’s Modern Applications & Platforms team. Before joining Exxon, she was a 2D Senior Project Lead at The Studio of Secret 6, a game development company based in the Philippines. Erika merges her passion for design, culture, and games by transforming experiences through gamification. Outside of design, she enjoys playing video games, reading b...

Jonathan Remulla is a Product Design Manager at SurveyMonkey, leading design for the core surveys experience for self-serve and enterprise customers. Since 2015, he's been an educator at General Assembly, teaching UX at the San Francisco campus. Jonathan also runs Supafrenz, providing clients with both traditional graphic and product design. A Bay Area native, he loves watching anything fighting,...

Kervin Tan is a freelance product designer and a mountain seeker. He is currently a product designer consultant at Hometime, a property management startup based in Australia and at BioMark, a health-tech startup based in Singapore. He is focused on working with companies that are building their MVPs, redesigning their platforms, and scaling their systems. Kervin loves to hike and appreciate nature...

Carla Taruc Porticos is the UX/CX Research Lead and Managing & Founding Partner of Influx Research Philippines. Before her ABCs, she learned research terms from her parents who worked in market research for over 30 years. Shifting from market research to UX was seamless for Carla, having worked on UX projects since 2006. She also rides a 1200cc BMW RNineT motorbike which she calls “Beast.” Now, Ca...

Grey wanted to be a UX Designer way before it was cool. After spending more than half a decade as digital product manager for the banking and fintech industry, she is now a Product Design Lead for UBX Philippines. She loves conducting design sprints/workshops and user research and testing. — anything that will allow her to talk to and learn more about people. She also regards herself as a serial s...

Jennifer Suazo is the UX Lead for Singlife Philippines, a digital insurance company that embraces technology to help Filipinos manage, grow, and protect their money. She took her Master's of Science in Interaction Design and Computing at University of Westminster in London with a Merit Award Class, which previously helped her land her first UX role in AXA Philippines. She’s an avid reader and a se...

Miramark Diaz is a Designer who creates digital products for brands, companies, and startups. Currently he’s a Design Manager at one of the largest airline companies in the Philippines, Cebu Pacific Air, where he looks over the process, people, and the optimization of their work. His drive to learn, do, and create is fueled by his hunger for the mastery of the process, and the continuous cycle of...