Adil Dhanani
Slack / Director of Product Design
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Adil is a design leader with almost two decades of experience designing consumer products and leading multidisciplinary teams that have reached millions globally. His experience spans large corporations (HP, Apple, Salesforce) to pre-IPO startups (Uber) to early-to-mid stage startups (OneID, Beats Music, Handshake). He cares deeply about the people he works with, the quality of the output, and creating value for both the users and business.
Currently at Slack, he leads the Canvas design team, which is Slack’s most dynamic surface for curating knowledge to be shared in various ways or just to keep notes for yourself within Slack. During his first time at Slack, he led the Activation design team within the Expansion pillar (growth) to focus on small-to-medium companies and organizations (self-serve business). Their mission was to help every team be successful from the start.
Working in Silicon Valley since 2007, he’s realized that there are two things that gets him excited everyday: designing useful and beautiful products and working alongside passionate, motivated people.
Caroline Miranda
Continental / UX & User Insights Manager
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Caroline is a Senior User Insights & UX Manager at Continental, a leading automotive technology company. With 17 years of design experience, including over nine years specializing in User Experience Design, User Research, and Data-Driven Innovation, she is dedicated to shaping the future of mobility by creating user-centric and data-informed solutions for digital and physical products and services.
Her expertise lies in developing and implementing UX management strategies, with a strong emphasis on user research and collaboration with various stakeholders across the organization. Passionate about solving complex problems through a multidisciplinary approach, Caroline focuses on User Experience Design and Interfaces, User Research, Design Thinking methodologies, and Data Analytics.
Having gained valuable experience at international companies such as Ford Motor Company and Stellantis, Caroline is committed to driving innovation in the automotive industry and is eager to share her insights.
Cyrièle Piancastelli
Sony Music Entertainment / Director of Product Design
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Cyrièle Piancastelli is Director of Product Design at Sony Music. She leads the design discipline in the Product, Design & Engineering team of Sony Music (Sony Music PDE). Her team is responsible for designing a Suite of applications aimed at music professionals (B2B) and artists (B2C).
Good design is good business – to ship successful products, collaboration between product, design, and engineering is key: defining clear success metrics to design the right thing, and creating a systemic experiential language shared across all apps to design the thing right in the most efficient way.
Before that, she worked as a UX designer and Information architect at the BBC and Epic Games.
Dalia El-Shimy
WISE / Director of UX Research
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Dalia is an engineer-turned-academic-turned-user-researcher. She is currently the Director of UX Research at Wise, and before that was the Head of UX Research at Miro, where she helped build the team and discipline from the ground up. She started her career as a human-computer interaction researcher, then joined Shopify, where she helped scale the UX Research practice from a few researchers to a team of 60+ strong and co-led the craft across the entire organisation. When she’s not busy asking too many questions, Dalia enjoys films, books, music, baking, and all things David Bowie.
Judith Heckmann, Ph.D.
Decathlon Technology / User Research Operations Professional
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Empathy serves as the foundation of innovation. By gaining profound insights into users and promoting collaboration across teams, products that genuinely connect and generate significant impact are developed." - Judith, a dedicated Staff Researcher within Decathlon's Circularity Team, boasting more than five years of experience in User Experience (UX). She is devoted to advancing impactful innovation through empathy and teamwork, recognizing research as a pivotal ally in achieving product excellence. Judith aims to integrate research with product development to catalyze positive transformations and inspire individuals through the influence of sport.
Julien CLEMENT
Carrefour / Global Head of Design Digital
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Julien, currently Head of Design & CX for Carrefour France and Group, leads the evolution and implementation of the design strategy across 8 countries. Formerly VP of Design at ManoMano, he also made a significant impact at Veepee (formerly vente-privée) by building the design team and strategy, strengthening the company's European leadership in flash sales. His unique expertise in strategic design helps transform retail specialists in their e-commerce development and positioning.
Johannes Lehner
Intact / Lead UX Engineer
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In addition to his commitment to the UX Graz community, Johannes Lehner is the Regional Representative of UXPA Austria. Since 2024, he has been particularly committed to promoting accessibility and fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration between the UX community and other fields. At the same time, Johannes started his "Design System Diaries", a LinkedIn Live webinar series where he shares in-depth knowledge and practical insights on design systems.
Together with his office dog Zeus, Johannes works as a Lead UX Engineer at Intact GmbH. Since he started his position in 2014, he has played a key role in raising awareness of UX at Intact, resulting in a UX-conscious approach to projects. In addition to building Intact's UX team, he initiated and led the implementation of ZEUS, Intact's design system, establishing solid processes and fostering cross-functional and cross-departmental collaboration.
Additionally, Johannes takes on freelance projects under the jBear Graphics brand, supporting companies in UX research, concept creation, and integrating UX into their businesses for over ten years. Until 2023, he also shared his UX expertise as a guest lecturer at the University of Passau (Germany).
Ksenia Valkovskaia
LVMH - Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy / Art Director - Moët Hennessy eBusiness
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As Art Director at Moët Hennessy eBusiness, Ksenia covers brand representation in eCommerce and digital channels focused on creating valuable digital experiences for LVMH - the world-leader luxury group. Currently based in Paris, Ksenia started her career in Germany at Adidas Group. She later led art direction and UX design teams for global fashion and sports brands.
Natalia Gorobinskaya
TheFork / Head of UX Research
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Natalia Gorobinskaya, a brilliant mind with a deep passion for understanding the intricacies of human nature and technology.
As the Head of UX Research at TheFork, she brings a unique perspective to the work, viewing research as a way of life and technology as one of its dimensions. With a background in Human Computer Interaction from the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, she has delved deep into topics such as embodied cognition, affective computing, and optimal performance. Her compelling exploration of human behavior and her commitment to understanding the human-system interaction make her a captivating and insightful speaker.
Stephen Ellis
Airbus / UX Lead - Engineering Transformation
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Stephen is an experienced service designer and product manager who has a successful track record in IT and engineering innovation.
Originally trained as an architect, Stephen has had over 30 years as a design professional, from 3D animation to teaching and research, mobile development, and rapid prototyping. He has worked at small-scale startups, mid-level agencies, and for global brands.
With the benefit of experience, he says that the fundamentals of design do not change as much as job titles do. You learn more from failure than success, and wicked problem solving is its own reward.
He now leads the adoption of UX design into Airbus Engineering and, in particular, working alongside systems and value engineers to provide a holistic view of issues. Airbus is looking ahead and bringing a human-centered approach to the tools and services needed for a new generation of aircraft.
Satoru Murakoshi
Ubie / Product Design
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Satoru Murakoshi has over 10 years of experience Product Designer and Information Architect based in Tokyo. After working as an Operation Officer at Goodpatch and Senior Manager at Accenture, he joined Ubie in 2021. Since joining Ubie, he has been working as a product designer on how to integrate business outcomes and patient outcomes to achieve our mission “To develop a healthcare guide for everyone.”, he tries to figure out how designers should understand patients’ narratives more deeply.
Vivian Ko
AXA Japan / UX Manager
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Vivian Ko, a Tokyo-based UX designer with over a decade of design experience, was born and raised in Taiwan and educated in the US. Her multicultural background has enriched her creative journey and cultivated a holistic approach to crafting impactful user experiences.
She currently works as the UI/UX Lead at AXA Japan. As the first hired designer, she has grown the UX team from a single member to a team handling multiple products, demonstrating her ability to spearhead innovative solutions in non-tech industries.
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