Explore every episode of the podcast Working in UX Design

Ana Lei is driven by the dynamic intersection of finance and technology. This fascination fuelled her career pivot from private banking into tech. She believes the world can be more equitable if complex financial systems are demystified through technology. A seasoned Lead Product Manager, Ana most recently played a pivotal role in Grab’s super-app journey, contributing to the early launch of GrabPay and the regional expansion of GrabFood across Southeast Asia. She led multiple products that supported millions of merchants with accurate and timely payments. Ana is currently pursuing her Master’s in FinTech at NYU Stern, where she explores how emerging technologies are shaping the future of financial products. She also mentors startups, product managers, and aspiring professionals building careers in tech.

Hear us cover:

• Transitioning from banking to product management
• How products were launched in the early days (2017+) vs. today to power a super app
• Pivots from 0 to 1 while building at Grab and expanding regionally
• The role of AI in modern product management

With 10+ years of experience working in New York City, San Francisco, China, Singapore, and now Australia, Jay Demetillo has built an impressive resume of experience and creating impact from 0 to 1. Jay has designed for Twitter, Pinterest, Yahoo, and Grab. Jay was an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and has spoken/lectured in China for ACG. He’s worked on notable projects like the Bay Lights, Gaspar Brasserie, San Francisco’s Park System SFPark, GrabFood, and Grab AudioProtect. Jay is passionate about building products and designs that are inclusive, having empathy for your users, and challenging your biases. Currently, he's at Canva where he led and launched Canva Sheets this year.

Hear us cover:

• The designer as a strategic partner
• Developing "Good taste"
• Gen AI's impact on the future of design
• Building confidence and protecting yourself from burnout

Tara Hirebet is a seasoned product development and research leader with 18+ years experience working with big tech (Google), startups (Spotify) and super apps (GoJek, Swiggy, Rappi), creative agencies (RGA, TBWA), and government—delivering across the full E2E lifecycle. She builds things that don't exist yet— products, teams, offices and approaches —wherever the highest-stakes, messiest challenges live. Her strength lies in connecting systems thinking with user insight, then turning that into scalable solutions that unlock new market share, revive stuck products, or define what's next. Tara believes in seeing users and products as systems. Systems are much harder to abandon.

Tara has led multinational teams to address complex challenges, from combating rideshare fraud to launching and scaling products in mass markets like Southeast Asia and Latin America. A recognized thought leader, Tara has spoken at global events such as TEDx Singapore and SXSW and has been featured in leading publications including The Economist Intelligence Unit and The Business Times.

Tara is currently the Deputy Director of Research at GovTech and prior to that was engaged in fractional advisory roles in female health, neurodiversity, and Gen Z research. On the side, she is developing an Asia-America animation project with an ex-Pixar animator.

Hear us cover:

• How Google maps and search are designed from systems
• Applying systems thinking for sustainability
• From hype cycle to preservation transformation
• Silicon Valley vs South-East Asia product building mindset
• Getting a Product Design Role in the USA

Sherizan Sheikh is a designer and AI builder. He leads design at botim (MENA’s fastest-growing app), builds solo projects like Nasma.ai, a spiritual AI habit tracker, Getglocal.ai, AI localisation tool and runs Detach.to for designers who love AI. When he’s not in Figma or Cursor, he’s rallying builders at JFBI, a vibecoding community in UAE.

Hear us cover:

• Why vibe code is a massive opportunity for product professionals
• Deciding what to build
• Getting started with tools
• Launch and market to PMF
• Reiterating as a solo builder
• UX Career pathways

Jocelyn is a product and design leader with 14 years of experience in building strong teams and creating impact for consumers and businesses. She helps teams achieve strategic excellence across stages and particularly loves the 0-1 stage. She has been the CEO of a Series A breast cancer biotech (acquired in 2019), founded two organizations, including a design firm based in NYC, and has been part of the founding team of two other companies. Her expertise is her ability to translate customer insights into concepts and products. Some careers highlights include being a Senior Product and Design Director at a design care agency in the US, learning a team to design products from healthcare to eldercare, teaching classes at Stanford's design school (d.school), and getting her career started in finance, at the International Finance Corp., World Bank Group based in Nairobi, Kenya. Jocelyn believes that the how matters as much as the what when building products. She is based in Singapore with her family.

Hear us cover:

• What’s an effective product discovery process?
• The Power of Iteration: Why “Fit” is a Moving Target
• Setting Up for Research Success in the Age of GenAI
• Best Practices for Iterative Product Discovery (including localisation)
• Case Studies: Success Stories of Agile Product Market Fit and AI-Accelerated Discovery

Assyaraf is currently a product design manager at Circles - a Telco SaaS company. With 10 years of experience in digital design, he is passionate about building great products as well as mentoring and growing design teams. Outside of work, Assyaraf enjoys the occasional travelling, discovering new music and supporting his favourite football team, Liverpool FC.

Hear us cover:

• Lessons from transitioning from an individual contributor to a team manager
• Why choose a career and culture that demands excellence?
• Scaling design teams in the ASEAN region
• Reasons for working in a startup vs elsewhere

Jill Quek is a design lead at Automattic. She currently manages a team of product designers, who work remotely from all over the world. Together, they build e-commerce software at scale for more than 3 million stores on WordPress. Hear us cover:

• Making remote work productive as a leader
• Managing up and design team visibility while working remote
• Growing and evolving your career as an IC and Manager
• Preparing a portfolio and profile for an international company like Automattic

Sabina Fernandez is a UX Content Design Lead whose designs have unlocked millions-worth of spending with diverse-owned suppliers. How? Empathy. She puts herself in the shoes of others to make things better.

After launching user experience (UX) content design in Meta's APAC headquarters, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she continued to design with words and information, making Enterprise software intuitive and user-friendly at Meta. Before that, she crafted content for Yahoo, Audi, and Conde Nast Traveller.

Hear us cover: - Bridging the talent gap in content and product design - Why does it pay to be curious and courageous at work? - How is AI changing the work in content and product design? - Language and localisation competencies in global projects

Winnie Chong has spent 17 years bridging creativity and commerce in design, advertising, and interactive media across the APAC region. She’s worked with some of the biggest names, from VMLY&R, a global digital ad agency, to SPH, where she played a key role in transforming Singapore’s largest media company from traditional publishing to the digital economy. Today, she leads User Experience at Bank of New York and is based in Singapore. Winnie’s passion is understanding what people truly want, whether it’s clients, customers or users, and making sure the experiences she designs are not only functional but also loved. She believes great design starts with listening—even when it means unlearning what you thought you knew. It’s about sparking curiosity, igniting imagination, and bringing a little wonder into people’s lives.

Hear us cover:

• Barriers to adopting new technologies
• Investor and evangelism mindset for designers
• The potential of blockchain and its associated projects
• Why curiosity has a high correlation to one's career trajectory?

Jonathan Yap is a design leader and community advocate exploring the evolving identity of design in Southeast Asia. Through Design Pay Asia, he dives beyond surface-level salary data to uncover deeper insights about career growth, education pathways, and the changing value of design in the region. With 15 years of experience across WeWork and Visa, and currently leading design standards at a Singapore bank, Jonathan brings a unique perspective on how design roles are transforming alongside technological advancement. His work combines quantitative insights with nuanced understanding of cultural and educational shifts in the design industry. As someone deeply invested in nurturing future design talent, he regularly speaks about the intersection of design education, industry needs, and regional identity in Southeast Asia's growing tech ecosystem.

Hear us cover:

• Preview of Design Pay 2025 Report
• Salaries between men and women
• Where are the UX hotspots in South-East Asia?
• How design education is shifting and what that means for future talents
• The perception vs reality of design value in our region
• Continuous learning as a product and design talent

With over a decade in design, Yin has done everything from print and branding to working with startups, leading event creatives, and managing an indie band’s branding. After 5 years in consulting, where she worked across different industries and regions, she now lead the design and product teams at Naluri, pulling all that experience together to create impactful digital products.

Hear us cover:

• Building a regional product with global ambitions from Malaysia
• Evolving Naluri's Brand and Design Language
• Designing around legacy systems
• Insights building and designing for HealthTech
• Consulting at McKinsey vs working In-house

Kicking off his career through hackathons, Isaac Lee quickly transitioned from payments into wealthtech. With a passion for solving problems at scale, he's revamped wealthtech apps, overhauled customer service workflows, and automated everything from onboarding to exclusive investor products. Now, he’s discovering just how far technology can elevate wealth management as a senior product manager at Endowus.

Hear us cover:

• Solving the issue of both online and offline experience in wealth management
• Cultural adaptation versus thought leadership, GTM for different markets
• Product Innovation at a growth stage company
• Building a career in FinTech

Shery is a design strategist with a flair for unconventional thinking and excels at tackling complex problems in creative ways. After nearly a decade in New Zealand, this Singaporean returnee has built a solid track record across Aviation, Education, Digital Consulting, FinTech, and more. As a cheeseboard layout expert, amateur wine-enthusiast and lazy food lover, she set up the Innovation Design Club as a support group for wayward designers like herself. Now part of the care Innovation team at SC Ventures, she leverages her talent for connecting the dots to drive ecosystem considerate thinking and achieve meaningful growth.

A strong believer in outcome-driven collaboration, Shery is passionate about reinforcing future-proof strategies through people-first approaches. With deep experience in service and product design, she’s led impactful initiatives in digital transformation, customer experience, and partnerships across diverse industries.

Hear us cover:

- Skillsets of an Innovation Designer (or Consultant)

- Building a community like Innovation Design Club

- Consulting vs In-house Design Team

- Innovation theatre in enterprises

- Sustainability practices

Adela is Director of Product Design and User Insights teams at Zalora, working across various SEA markets. She has been at the forefront of designing user friendly and intentional products, services and experiences. She has been both on client side and consultancy side having worked across continents in Americas, Europe and now in Asia.

Hear us cover: - Service Design in Europe vs Asia - Skillsets of a Service Designer - Projects at Zalora and more that goes beyond UX design - Consulting vs In-house Design Team

Norman is a senior design manager based in Singapore. At Grab, he drives strategy, design, culture, and growth across the organization with a focus on elevating user experiences across support, comms, safety, and family experiences for 600+ million people across Southeast Asia.

He’s deeply fascinated by how businesses, communities, and ecosystems are built, broken, and evolved and why we make the choices we do. Outside of work, he shares his insights as a writer, moderator, and speaker. He’s been nominated as a young gun by Antalis 10-20-30, a judge for Singapore Good Design and has been featured in Business Times, Singapore Economic Development, The Straits Times, art4d, MTV Asia, The Breakfast Show, and Juice magazine.

Hear us cover:

- Managing and partnering up in a corporate environment

- Building a diverse in-house design team that thrives

- Engaging others on the possibilities and potential of design

- Building sustainable talent practices with new capabilities and approaches

- How do you push yourself to be better as a design leader?

Izwan Ismail is a digital and design leader with over a decade of experience that encompasses startups, scaleups, and corporations. He has advised a government on building startup ecosystems and built the nation's digital and design capability.

Izwan builds and leads teams of world-class designers, product managers, engineers. He believes in tying together the user's need, technology's feasibility and business viability to achieve digital evolution's success.

He also co-founded VLT Labs, a venture builder that builds, launches, and invests in startups across South East Asia, Australia, and Europe. His venture builder successfully merged with McKinsey & Company in 2017. As an Expert Associate Partner In McKinsey, Izwan led the design for Digital Labs in Southeast Asia. He has experience delivering impact in education, banking, insurance, energy, and oil & gas sectors.

Join us to hear us cover:

- Managing upwards in a corporate environment - Building an in-house designer-friendly ecosystem - Exciting others on the possibilities of design - Building sustainable talent practices: new capabilities and new talent - How do you push yourself to be better as a design leader?

Eyad's a venture bricklayer with his recent experience primarily being in the digital sector for energy, renewables, commerce, media and fintech, from early-stage strategy and product concept development to securing resources required to set-up and operationalize new products and services. He tends to surf the sweet spot between product management, business development and technology. He is interested in positive and sustainable change and is energized and enthused by great design and great experiences. Today, he supports the commercialisation aspiration of a large, diversified renewable energy firm in Malaysia.

He scored top in the 2020 Oxford Fintech Programme with Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. In 2019 he was invited to join the Advisory Council of Gerson Lehrman Group for Technology, Media and Telecommunications. In 2014 he had an award-winning technical paper published twice (in Malaysia and Australia). He's a Certified Innovation Practitioner and Train The Trainer. He holds a Design Thinking Facilitation certificate from the Copenhagen Institute for Interactive Design. Eyad recently became an accredited Angel Investor. He's based in Kuala Lumpur with his son.

Join us to hear us cover: - The parallels of evangelising something abstract like innovation or design in an enterprise - What are the models of innovation at an enterprise? - Communicating value and impact of a mid to long term project - Practical skills Eyad had to acquire to be an innovation or venture leader - Tips to engage senior management and stakeholders

Meet Johnny, a seasoned designer with over two decades of experience spanning various industries, including comics, automobiles, mobile apps, and secondhand goods. He is driven by the belief that exceptional design should seamlessly blend into our lives, offering intuitive experiences that feel like second nature. Johnny's mission is to simplify our increasingly complex world through the creation of digital interfaces that are not only visually appealing but also user-friendly, making information readily accessible. With a wealth of expertise in product design and a track record of shaping UI/UX strategies for tech companies in Malaysia, Johnny is deeply passionate about all facets of design. And, by the way, he's also an avid coffee enthusiast!

Hear us cover:

- Johnny's UX career working for startups like Carsome and Mudah.my (part of Carousell Group) and with larger organisations

- What leaders need to know about the Malaysia tech ecosystem concerning product talent

- Johnny's career conversion journey from Art Director to UX Designer

- Why build a community of design leaders through an event like Design Leadership Kuala Lumpur?

With over 13 years of experience spanning digital agencies, e-commerce (11street - a joint venture between SK Planet and Celcom Axiata), and telecommunications (Digi in Malaysia and Smartfren in Indonesia), Faidzal strongly advocates for a research-first approach. He emphasises the importance of data-driven decisions and continuous design experimentation. Currently, Faidzal is the UX Design Lead for Global Commerce at LINE in Bangkok, Thailand.

He focuses primarily on building and strengthening the 3Ps: - People: Uplifting the team's research-driven mindset and building a data-driven culture. - Product: Strategising a UX approach that fits the company's direction. - Practice: Setting up a core framework for UX design practices.

Join us to hear us cover: - Working overseas in Indonesia and Thailand as a Malaysian - Thinking deeper about user experience and its subconscious impact - Negotiating salaries and getting jobs overseas as a UXer

Ruby has spent her career making organisations more customer-centric. In Singapore, her experience includes working as a Lead UX Researcher at Grab and Strategic Designer at Boston Consulting Group.

Previously she worked as a management consultant at Nous Group in Australia. Ruby's career has focused on using Human Centred Design techniques in diverse contexts across the public, private and non-profit sectors to provide advice on product and service design, strategy and policy.

Ruby has spoken at multiple international conferences and regularly shares design thought leadership on LinkedIn.

Join us to hear us cover:

- How do we quantify the business impact of UX design or research

- The role of a strategic designer

- What most organisations get wrong in digital strategy and design strategy

Daryl is a Digital Product Designer with over a decade of experience working in various agencies, start-ups, and SMEs. He is creatively curious, and enjoys crafting meaningful experiences by leveraging on the latest data, processes, and technology.

In his previous roles and experiences, he led successful teams in delivering high-value projects, implemented processes and systems while collaborating across various business, research, product and engineering units locally and internationally to drive product and service to successful delivery.

His motivations are to continue to discover, learn and innovate through the understanding and application of new concepts and methodologies to endeavours both personally and professionally. He enjoys engaging with people from all backgrounds

Join us to hear us cover:

- How does working for an agency or startup feels like as a UX-er

- Coaching junior UX colleagues at work

- Managing burnout and stress in between change and projects

Chenmu Wu graduated from university with a degree in Architecture and proceeded to work at Shopee for four years as a UIUX designer. In 2019, he played a pivotal role in initiating the migration of the design team from Sketch to Figma. This transition sparked his enthusiasm for Figma, leading him to embark on developing Figma plugins as side projects. During his time at Shopee, Chenmu served as the primary contributor and manager of the Shopee Design System. Additionally, he took charge of the UIUX design for Bill payments and the Shopee international platform.

In his current position as the Lead UI/UX Designer at Daraz - Alibaba, Chenmu holds the responsibility of overseeing a team of five designers from both Pakistan and Singapore. They are dedicated to driving innovation and fostering user-centric design solutions within the organization.

Join us to hear us cover:

- How and why Chenmu’s Figma plug-in the generates wireframes using ChatGPT went viral

- How can progressive designers work with AI

- Implication of AI in the product development process

Part technologist and part psychologist, Gideon specialises in designing experiences with emerging technologies such as AI, IOT and Automation, and brings over 15 years of experience of working in Startups, Corporates and Consulting where he has worked on a wide variety of products and projects which range from Fintech, Insuretech to Media, Health, Telcos, E-Commerce and E-Learning.

Synopsis: UX has come a long way, from a term only used in academia, making its way into the industry and becoming part of day-to-day language.

At the same time, UX practitioners are constantly going through a roller coaster ride with changing role titles and terminologies, and the industry slowly calibrating the formulas to building products.

And now, with AI and no-code platforms starting to look like they can conquer more chunks of the UX process, it just makes you wonder what's next for UX...

Join us to hear us cover:

- How UX started and matured as a practice

- Existing trends we see today

- What's the future of UX going to look like

Upasna started as a UX Researcher (Team of 1) in the fintech industry solving user problems related to finance needs specifically in the APAC region (think loans, insurances, investments etc) and then grew into a UXR leader growing research teams. Having worked for startups and corporates, Upasna knows what are the advantages and challenges that both environments bring and has been coaching researchers to align where they truly fit. All this only to realise that empathy and organisational culture stand at the core of what she believes in. Since then she has been trying to nurture and grow user research not only as a craft but also grow researchers in a way that is both nurturing and helps them demonstrate the value of what they deliver within the organisation effectively.

With a background in human computer interaction and behavioural design she turned her systematic approach to problem solving into processes and framework that help her teams achieve the results they want without compromising on work life balance. Armed with time management and ruthless prioritisation she believe she truly can have it ALL!

Join us to hear us cover:

- Transitioning from UX Research to Management track - How to create a space for yourself to shine as a potential leader

- Creating opportunities to start mentoring/coaching and establishing yourself as a referent

- Prioritization and creating your portfolio

- Finding work life balance

Kuei Tien Huang is a Product Design Manager with Rakuten Viki who manages and develops the product experience design team. Whether it’s solving a complex design problem, or just making people happy in the office, she aims for simple, intuitive solutions that will improve the lives of those around her. Kuei Tien has previously also worked as a Senior UX Designer at Rakuten Viki as well as a Product Designer at Carousell. She has also done UX and Visual Design work for Migme and Bread Of Life Christian Church.

Join us to hear us cover:

- How designing for the western market at Viki differs from designing for the Asia market at Carousell?

- Lessons learnt from transitioning from a UX individual contributor to a manager

- Tina's career journey: Finding a job in Singapore and transitioning from a Mathematics major

- UX maturity in Taiwan

Yi Xin is a senior product designer specializing in UX and UI with over 13 years of experience of solving problems and crafting great user experience for businesses and consumers. Her experience in software engineering and frontend development knowledge to be able to work with product development teams seamlessly to translate vision into functional and delightful experiences. She was previously from Stripe and Amazon Web Services and had also led UX and Design in multiple projects at Open Government Products, GovTech such as Parking.sg. RedeemSG used for CDC Vouchers scheme and Vaccine Appointment System.

Join us to hear us cover:

- How proficiency in coding helps you design better?

- Difference between designing for local vs global, for government vs business

- Yi Xin's career journey: From a game artist to a product designer

- Staying resilient during the tech layoffs

- Side projects tinkering with code and design

Jared is an experienced product leader with over 15 years of experience in product management and digital innovation across various industries.

He is a design-thinking practitioner who enjoys creating products that empower people. During this tenure leading the product and design team in CARRO, he found passion in coaching and mentorship, helping others in their growth.

In his personal life, he is a proud fur-dad of 4 rescued dogs.

Join us to hear us cover:

- Scaling product and UX design teams, especially with resource constraints

- UX strategy (including hiring a strategist) and how it plays a role in taking the team to the next level

- Helping to keep Carro’s design language distinctive from competitors

- What new design leaders should know in their first/second year of their job

Product Designer at SPH based in Singapore focusing on implementing user-centred, data-driven and business-oriented design.

He has been involved in various stages of product delivery, from doing 0 to 1 work in Xendit (YC15) a hyper-growth unicorn startup to scaling up B2B, B2C and B2B2C products in an array of different industries across multiple platforms.

His best work happens when he is crafting solutions and championing human experiences in a collaborative, ambitious and innovative team.

Passionate about Design, he coaches and mentors early-stage designers or transitioners in the field of design by either helping them land their first design role or accelerate their growth as a designer. He has helped more than 50 mentees and was recognised multiple times as a super mentor (Top 1% recognition worldwide) on ADPlist - A design mentorship platform.

Join us to hear us cover:

- 1.5 years experience in a high-growth startup

- What do Product Designers do vs UX Designers?

- Product Thinking between PMs and Designers, where is the line drawn?

- What does being a top 1% super mentor on ADPList mean? What have you noticed in portfolios?

UX Researcher at Amazon, Monica Chan, is a Singaporean living and working in the United States.

She recently graduated from Columbia University (Teachers College), where she completed her doctorate in Education Technology and focused on K-12 maker / STEAM education. Now at Amazon Alexa, she investigates interactive experiences between humans and voice assistants, in areas such as personalization, customization, and proactivity.

She recently started mentoring at ADPList and Open Door Policy, an organization that helps refugees upskill to find remote jobs, as she is passionate about supporting upskilling/reskilling opportunities and career transitions for underserved populations. In her free time, Monica keeps up-to-date with edtech and emerging tech trends.

Join us to hear us cover:

- Do you need a PhD to work in UXR?

- Projects and processes at Amazon Alexa

- Reframing your experience and CV for UXR

- Experience working for US Tech companies like Uber, Pinterest & Amazon

With over 20 years in experience design, the last 15 years have seen Homaxi Irani in roles providing leadership to build and elevate UX research and design maturity within organisations. She has worked in Australia and Asia in Group and APAC roles, in both corporate and consultancies.

Homaxi’s motivation to share her experience and learn from others drives her to invest time in the design community as an educator, coach, and mentor.

She is currently looking for global or regional opportunities to drive design maturity and customer centricity at an enterprise level. Homaxi enjoys collaboration with business partners that accelerates the product design partnership and results in richer customer experiences.

Come down to hear us cover:

- UX Design Research vs UX Strategic Research

- How to be more strategic as a junior designer

- Interview preparation for a UX Researcher role

- Enterprise vs Startup UX

Khai Seng has been in the UX design field since 2004, focusing on design research and interaction design. He was formerly the Head of Singapore for Foolproof, a UK-based experience design agency. He is a firm believer in holistic experience design spanning digital, spatial, product and service domains. However, he also thinks that delivering great design for a client is only part of the equation – it is also key to help clients bring sustained impact and cultural change in the way they work.

Learning and people development are in his blood. He has taught at Republic Polytechnic and helped developed the curriculum in anthropological studies, interaction design, experience design and design thinking. He has also spent time growing the UX community in Singapore through organising the UXSG conferences and monthly meet-ups.

Throughout his career, Khai Seng has facilitated many workshops and training programmes with C-suite executives and working professionals to drive cultural change within organisations around design and innovation. Khai Seng is also certified as an Integral coach by New Ventures West – that involves helping clients to create and maintain habits of excellence that are self-generating and self-correcting.

Come down to hear us cover:

- Journey of leading a UX firm and subsequently a Dojo to help leaders and organisations

- What leaders should know about the power of facilitation?

- Why Studio Dojo organised design challenges for the community?

Wenshu is a senior product designer at Shopify with a background in industrial design.

He helps reduce risk in product development and solves high-impact problems with elegant and thoughtful solutions. He works best in cross-functional teams and has 7 years of experience shipping successful B2C and B2B products and services.

Beyond working with leading global technology companies, start-ups and government agencies, he tries to find time to give back to the local design community.

Come down to hear us cover:

- Growing from a junior to senior UX-er

- Why designers should learn from non-designers

- How networking and community participation helped Wenshu in his career transition

- Designing for B2B vs B2C digital products

Chin Chin started out as a visual communication designer, with her role expanding towards strategic experience design. She is a person who is always looking to learn so she can acquire skills to help her career as well as her clients.

Over the course of her work, Chin Chin has collected different experiences in design and product management. She has worked across multiple industries including consumer electronics, household appliances, computers, food and beverage and digital services.

Since 2016, Chin Chin has been managing Somia Customer Experience, a consultancy specialising in Product Innovation and Strategic Design. Chin has honed her craft working in multinationals, new ventures, as well as her own start-up. With her experience, she helps businesses identify their business needs to rightly frame what is needed to generate thoughtful value propositions.

Chin is also an animal lover at heart which led her to start and manage the brand and marketing of a social enterprise, GOOOD Pet Collars, in 2010. She also organised 9LivesShow, an art and design exhibition to bring awareness to care for community cats, as part of the Singapore Design Week 2017 and 2019.

Join us to hear us cover:

- Challenges & learnings running a boutique UX consultancy

- Managing remote research/design teams

- Working in UX field research in countries like Indonesia

- How does coaching help you be a better UX-er?

As a UX Designer, Ning believes strongly that products can be and should be designed ethnically and with inclusivity in mind.

Previously, Ning has worked in both big and small organisations such as OCBC, HReasily, Silot and Chope in both Product and Marketing Design roles. Her experience in the tech sector has grown vastly over the years and she now finds herself involved in a variety of scopes including market and user research, design ops, and service design.

Ning considers herself a mini advocate for diversity and inclusivity. She was the co-lead for Proud Spaces, a career fair that showcased inclusive workplaces especially in the local sectors in 2018. She says it was one of the proudest moments of her career as she was able to secure sponsorships, rope in brands like Airbnb, 99.co, and The Lo and Behold Group, and pulled off the half-day event with great success on a relatively tight budget.

Come down to hear us cover:

Thoughts on being a UX Designer in Singapore

- Working in different types of organisations: Start-ups vs MNC

- Working in different design teams: Embedded vs Centralised

Inclusive Design

- Ning's interest in inclusivity and what it means to be inclusive in tech

- Notable Projects e.g. Proud Spaces, a career fair to showcase inclusivity at workplaces

Growing in UX

- Designing with data: Why it's important and why it's also not

- What to prepare for as a UX Designer grows his/her career in their 2nd/3rd year

Jingxiu is a UX Designer who strives to make a positive impact on society through human-centred design. He is currently working as a User Experience Architect at Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), where he designs user-centred technologies that contribute to the defence and security of Singapore.

Prior to his current role, Jingxiu spent the last four years pursuing his studies in London, where he graduated with a Master’s in Human-Computer Interaction and a Bachelor’s in Psychology. During this time, Jingxiu had also taken up a range of UX internships across different industries, solving design problems for both start-ups and larger companies in Singapore and the UK.

Jingxiu likes to spend his free time volunteering with non-profit organisations that focus on helping those who struggle with physical disabilities or mental health issues. He’s also an avid traveller who enjoys the outdoors and exploring new countries when he can.

Hear us cover:

- UX Internships in Singapore and London

- Should you take a Master's degree in HCI?

- Breaking into a competitive UX industry during the pandemic with remote interviews

- Why does our military defence organisation need UX?

Ajmal Afif Jamal is a Malaysian design executive living in Singapore. He is currently working as a Lead Product Designer at Grab.

He shares a vast work experience of more than 8 years in the digital design industry as a Product Designer. Previously started his career as a Digital Marketer and Frontend Developer in different startups in Kuala Lumpur.

Ajmal is always in search of opportunities to put his knowledge into practice, and he believes the best way to learn is by doing – and also by sharing with others.

Come down to hear us cover:

-Switching from frontend development to product design

-Working in Singapore Tech Scene as a Malaysian expatriate

-Gaining experience and levelling up as a UX designer in Aviva and Grab

-Learning and practising Behavioural Design in UX

Cheryl Wong is currently a UX/Service Designer & ResearchOps at GovTech, Government Digital Services (GDS) Singapore. She has over 11 years of diverse design experiences working as a Team Lead at a veteran design studio that made it to Singapore’s design history books, startup, consultancy and digital experience agency spanning various sectors: Fintech, Banking, Hospitality, Social Impact etc. She is passionate about shaping organisational culture, using design to improve the lives of users & teams while meeting business goals.

Based in Singapore, she has worked on projects around the world: Australia, Bangladesh, East Africa (Serengeti), Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Principality of Liechtenstein, Seychelles, South Africa (Johannesburg), Timor-Leste and UK.

She has organised, facilitated, presented at several tech public events such as Elephants in the room: Shitstorms in UX, CuriousCore’s Leaning Into Change - Experience and Service Design; STACK2020 Conference. She has supported the global UX community as Design Mentor at GDS & ADPList and served as Industry Guest Reviewer at Singapore Polytechnic Grad Show and General Assembly. She is a contributor for a Gluework article and was featured in TEDx’s Storytime revamping reading environments in India and will be organising an upcoming Learning Circles: Operationalising ResearchOps at Scale. In recognition for her design & impact on society, she has been featured on Google’s Women TechMakers’ International Women’s Day, alongside numerous accolades.

Here us talk about: - Service design at GovTech - Scaling user research for GoBusiness - Generic Stakeholder Management tips - Applying to be a UX Designer at GovTech - Bootcamp portfolios vs professional portfolios

Naroth Murali is a mixed-method UX researcher with over 6 years of experience in the design research domain.

Having majored in industrial design, he is presently a part of the UX Research Team in DBS Bank where he collects, analyses and interprets customer data for consumer banking business and UX teams.

An avid golfer, food/wine enthusiast and science-fiction lover, curiosity is at the core of what he does. He is adept at creating delightful user experiences that challenge the status quo, backed by uncompromising research.

We spoke about: - Choosing the right research method - Research fieldwork - Applying for a User Researcher job - Research Ops - Qual and Quant research at DBS Bank

Thye Chuan embraces and shares an ardent curiosity in infusing the concepts of Self-Awareness and Agility. As a UX designer, he has worked with digital teams of all sizes ranging from Fintech startups to large organisations such as SP Group. As a Scrum Master practitioner, he has also facilitated various Agile Transformation initiatives in organisations.

He enjoys sharing knowledge and concepts related to Self-Awareness and believes in creating unison among team members for better intercommunication. To him, understanding problems clearly before diving into solutions and creating a non-toxic learning culture are also key. Having met people with a passion for learning and growing as UX designers have propelled him to set up 'UX Guide SG', a resource hub for people to discover, learn and nurture their UX practices in Singapore.

We spoke about: - The self-aware designer - Your journey in Agile - Freelance vs in-house designer - Building uxguide.sg

Senior Product Designer at Xero, Kitt Santos, shares vast experience as an experience designer, freelance illustrator and design mentor. He is currently based in Canberra, Australia, has more than 12 years of experience in the industry, working along with agencies, getting involved in different design aspects, working with teams and collaborating with clients to articulate their philosophy and business requirements into unique design languages in the digital space. An avid visual artist in his free time, he takes a keen interest in the convergence of design and technology and how it creates meaningful digital experiences.

Head of Design at Grab, Randy Hunt, is an American design-centred executive living in Singapore where he spearheads a team of more than 130 product designers, researchers, writers, illustrators in creating the experience of Southeast Asia's leading family of superapps.

He has over 15 years of experience in the design industry, having previously worked as the Head of Design at Artsy and VP of Design at Etsy. He also authored the “Product Design for the Web” which explores the evolving discipline of product design for today’s connected world.

From the co-founder of an interaction design company to product design leader, Mike is an individual highly experienced in product and experience design, with over 10 years in the field. He was previously at Zendesk as a product designer working with product managers and engineers to create beautiful and simple business software that scales. He is currently the head of product design at ShopBack.

Mike’s philosophy is to make software simple with a data-driven design process and he is heavily influenced by works such as Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Rework by 37 Signals. He also enjoys conversations about building company culture, lean/agile UX and design processes.

Tune in to hear his thoughts on: - Designing for Zendesk vs Shopback - Transitioning from agency side to client-side and entrepreneur to employee - Grooming design talent

Starting from being a visual designer to eventually transitioning to full-fledged UX design roles in Razer and Shopee, Atiqah is an individual well-versed in the discipline of design. She is currently working at one of Asia’s largest e-commerce platforms, Shopee, as a senior UX designer in charge of crafting key payment pages and flows to support transactions across the Shopee app, ShopeePay, and other digital products.

As a designer, Atiqah is also involved in design across the brand’s different platforms, consisting of the Shopee App, PC web, and mobile web designs. She also plays an active role in the Muslim community. She is one of the co-founders for Malay Designers in SG, a group for current and aspiring Malay/Muslim designers. She also used to volunteer with The Codette Project, a non-profit ground-up initiative that aims to get more minority/Muslim women into technology.

Tune in to this episode and hear Atiqah’s thoughts on:

- Career transition from Graphic Design to UX Designer

- Working in Shopee and other tech companies like Razer and Popsical

- Designing for Muslim countries

Working In UX Design is an online Webinar Series graced with a Guest Interviewee of a current experienced UX practitioner, hosted by Daylon Soh, Founder & Design Educator at CuriousCore (ex-eCommerce Architect at Razer)

Sunit is a local product designer with an academic background in Design, Business, and Innovation. He specialises in visual, interaction, design strategy and leading teams. Sunit has been in a leadership role for the last five years and has been helping other designers to grow as better individuals and designers.

At SPH, he works with senior leadership across the origination to drive digital transformation, advocates for a user-centred design culture in various teams and delivers UX Strategy for various publication products and experiments. He also facilitates UX Practice through workshops, manages project timelines and mentors his talented team.

Hear his thoughts on:

- As a designer, how much do I need to know the business so I can design better? - What is the value of Business Strategy and Corporate Strategy in the product design, and how can designers help to achieve the strategic goals of a company? - How do I give, receive and apply feedback? - What is Design Operations and how do we know when it is done well? - The 3 things to consider to be effective at Design Ops

From taking on Producer roles in the Film and TV Production industry, Liva has jumped to Marketing, Content Creating and is now the VP of Content Design at DBS.

As part of DBS’ UX Design Team of 60 people with 15 nationalities and counting, she designs necessary designs for millions. She is also a UX Writer there and writes articles which are featured on uxplanet.org

As someone obsessed with structure, Liva’s inspiration is the iconic Sherlock Holmes, whom she sometimes relates to on her good days, where she is able to see how things connect — how the building blocks fit together and how if one block moves, everything else does too.

Come down to hear us cover:

- What is content design? What common attributes do good content designers share?

- How do content designers work with UX designers? How do you work with your marketing teams then?

- How do you justify the value of hiring content designers to management? Is this related to inbound marketing?

With more than 10 years of experience in the industry, Jay has worked in multiple impressive design roles in well-known companies like Twitter, Yahoo, Pinterest and now, Grab.

He is known to be a jack of all trades ranging from print, web, editorial design, branding, iconography, presentations, motion graphics, shooting & editing, directing, photography, UX, UI, Xcode, and prototyping.

Tune in to hear his thoughts on: - East vs West design process - What we see as users vs what we don't see behind the scenes - How do we shift design culture?

Despite a business academic background, he has worked in product development and design for the last 8+ years as a Product Designer. In the past few years, he has gone from being an IC to Lead, supporting teams across multiple countries.

Most of his days are spent understanding customer/business needs, crafting experiences, providing context for teams to solve the right problems and helping designers grow their design maturity.

When he's not designing, he's out and about exploring and capturing moments through his cameras.

Tune in to hear Varun's thoughts on:

- Varun's Self-Taught journey from business to UX

- How the Design Maturity in APAC affects trust and respect for design teams

- The rise in mobile-first design in the region

Preston has a portfolio of over 9 industries, solving organisational problems and nurturing successful design teams. He started out as a freelancer and evolved into multiple design roles, including being a UX Designer at InnoCellence where he worked with international clients from the medical industry, part-time UX Design Instructor at General Assembly, and a UX Lead at JLT Asia where he built, managed, explored and maintained multiple bespoke digital products for their clients.

Preston has taken each transition as a learning experience to grow outside of his comfort zone. Solving problems with design became more than a digital outcome. He currently works at Pebbleroad as a Product Owner where he helps companies be aware of root problems, collaborate with their working teams to solve them and prepare them for scale.

Join him next Wednesday as Daylon interviews him on his experiences on:

- Building a UX Design Team from scratch

- Learning from a Team as a new UX-er

- Leading change in UX and Product

#LeaningIntoChange Online Webinar Series graced with a Guest Interviewee of a current experienced UX practitioner each week, hosted by Daylon Soh, Founder & Design Educator at CuriousCore (ex-eCommerce Architect at Razer)

Having been a Lead Product Designer at ServisHero, Senior Product Designer at MindValley and now the Co-Founder and CTO of LottieFiles, Nattu has had plenty of years of experience in the field. He currently works in LottieFiles which focuses on building the future of animation and interactive design. It is a company funded by Adobe Fund for Design & 500 Startups and backed by M12, Microsoft VC as their investor.

With over 20 years of experience in building Web applications, his approach involves using a user-centered design process to turn complex problems into understandable and good-looking products. Tune in to hear his story in the industry as he provides stellar insights based on his global experience.

This episode is meant for aspiring UX Designers who are doubting their decision to make a career switch into UX and would like to hear from someone who has been in the same situation as them.