Design Voices Elevated

We’re at the end of Season 2 of Design Voiced Elevated , and to close, we’re returning to the topic of design within large organisations—a subject that those who’ve been following me for a while will know is my forte. For the final episode, I chose to interview Jeanette Clement, and after reviewing our conversation, I’m so glad I did! This interview covers many crucial topics, such as how to artic...

What does it take to finally decide to quit your job and start your own venture? How do you digitise an entire government offering to its citizens, starting almost from scratch and surrounded by scepticism? How do you deploy AI to truly improve service design outcomes? These are some of the topics I discussed with Roberta Tassi, a design leader and inspiring practitioner who has used service desig...

There are very few design founders out there, even fewer women design founders. So, in Season 2 of Design Voices Elevated , I made an effort to scout for women founders in design with great stories to tell. One of these women is Aleksandra Melnikova , the proud co-founder of Cosmic Velocity . Our conversation has been, as usual, honest and straight to the point, showcasing the human behind the lea...

Former medical doctor, service designer, design leader, founder, entrepreneur, angel investor— Dr Vivienne Heyhoe is all of these things. Over the span of her impressive career, she has combined diverse experiences and skills to place herself at the forefront of a mission to revolutionise healthcare—one startup at a time, one business at a time. Together, we discussed her transition into entrepren...

Sara Bellini is a design leader and co-founder of Alto Robotics. I was particularly interested in interviewing her, not only because of my quest to speak with more design founders but also due to her involvement in the robotics sector, where both designers and women are underrepresented. We discussed the transition from working with the intangible as a design consultant to handling tangible hardwa...

For episode four of Design Voices Elevated Season Two, I continue my journey of connecting with design founders by travelling to London to meet Niharika Hariharan , co-founder of Design3 . Niharika has an impressive track record, having spent her entire career in design consulting and in-house roles at companies like Nokia, Barclays, EY Seren, and McKinsey. A few years ago, she decided to leave he...

Welcome to the third episode of Season Two of Design Voices Elevated! In this episode, I interview Fabiola Nardecchia, UX Director at Media Monks. Fabiola is currently co-authoring a book on Ethics and AI, and in this interview, she shares emerging reflections from this journey. Fabiola discusses how AI has become more accessible to consumers through interfaces like ChatGPT, raising questions abou...

Welcome to the second episode of Season Two of Design Voices Elevated ! I'm your host, Marzia Aricò, and today we're delving into the world of creative intersections with a very special guest: Lex Fefegha. Lex is a UK-based artist, creative coder, and game designer, currently making waves as an artist-in-residence at Google's Art and Culture Lab. His focus is on creating interesting experiments at...

The first episode of Design Voices Elevated Season 2 features Sarah Gold, a design founder and CEO of Projects by IF, a design and strategy firm based in London. Projects by IF focuses on building trustworthy products and services that make people feel safe, empowered, and respected. Sarah and her team are on a mission to create a safer digital environment by addressing the complexities of technol...

Welcome to the final episode of Design Voices Elevated for Season 1. For this final episode, I went to Amsterdam to meet Birgit Geiberger, Global Head of Product UX Design - Domain Ventures & Services at IKEA. Birgit and I met at her home, where she showed me her art and experiments with her garden. We talked about her career choices, pivotal moments and learnings. We explored what it takes to be...

This is episode 9 of season 1 of Design Voices Elevated. For this episode, I travelled to London to meet Alessandra Canella, Head of UX at Cazoo. Alessandra tells us about her journey into design and leadership, the times she struggled and when she changed her mind about wanting to be a manager. We talked about the difference between a manager and a leader and explored the current status of the de...

Hanne is the Development Director at the Design Innovation Group, a design studio specialised in tackling social challenges. In this interview, we talk about Hanne's shift towards designing for purpose that brought her to work on tackling big hairy challenges such as creating more inclusive cities or ways to lower access to care. We talk about design as a way to create something that didn’t exist...

A Design Leader like no other! Alberta is a powerhouse of imagination and determination. In this interview, we explored how Alberta made a case for design in a large Telco, the business case she wrote and the numbers she pulled to make her case. We also discussed some of the pivotal moments in her career and the learnings she treasures from those experiences. Join the Design Mavericks community on...

In this week’s episode of Design Voices Elevated, I interviewed Emma Sandberg, Design Director at Philips. Emma heads the CMF Standards & Brand Licensing design team that guides stakeholders and partners to deliver product, digital, and packaging experiences for the Philips Brand. She has almost 20 years of experience leading Design Teams between Europe and Asia and a wealth of knowledge in making...

I’m very glad to share a new episode of Design Voices Elevated featuring Sabari Majumdar. Sabari is originally from India and has been living in London for over a decade. She is a design leader with mixed experience in consulting and in-house, today at Booking. Together we discussed how to deal with difficult stakeholders, how to make change happen in an organisation while adhering to your own per...

Welcome to a new episode of Design Voices Elevated, the series that brings you the perspectives of women leading design in organisations. Today, my guest is Remya Ramesh, whom I met at her apartment in West London. We discussed the beginning of her career, moving from India to Australia, with limited language proficiency and an engineering degree. We discussed her early development, her move into...

In this episode of Design Voices Elevated, Öznur and I discuss pivotal moments in her career and approach to leadership. We particularly uncover her transition from Google to Genomics England. In these two very different organisational environments, Öznur has maintained a focus on healthcare, but while at Google, she dealt with specific healthcare products; at Genomics England, she oversees the de...

The second episode features Bethany Jarroussié, a design leader with over 25 years of experience in the field. Two things truly resonated with me from our conversation. Firstly, Bethany’s ability to create her own opportunities, going after those fearlessly, eventually being recognised as an expert in that field. It’s something that a lot of us could use in our careers. Secondly, Bethany is an adv...

The first episode features Venessa Bennett, Global Director of UX at Dye & Durham Corporation. Venessa and I talked about how she articulates the value that her team and design bring to the organisation, how she has been intentional in crafting her design career, how to deal with bad managers, and how to decide to be one. Get full access to Design Mavericks at designmavericks.substack.com/subscrib...