The Evolving Design Leader: Embracing your changing role as you advance in your career
Peter Merholz
Consultant and Author
The scaling of design organizations the past few years has created enormous demand for design leaders at all levels. This has led to people taking on new leadership roles, and existing leaders getting promoted as their responsibilities grow, including true executive leadership roles. Thing is, the newness of all this means many leaders don’t quite know how they should best spend their time, and struggle with being effective. This talk provides map for each stage in your leadership journey, from manager to director to executive, as well as for those continuing as individual contributors. In which direction should you be oriented: managing down, across, or up-and-out? What activities are worth your time and effort (ensuring quality delivery; recruiting and hiring; strategy and vision)? The answers vary as you evolve in your career, and Peter will help you navigate.
Peter Merholz has been active in digital design and product for 25 years, most notably in building premier user experience consultancy, Adaptive Path, and now a design executive and product leader. He co-wrote Org Design for Design Orgs (O’Reilly), the first book focused on the organizational, managerial, and operational challenges of building in-house design teams.