Design Leadership Unplugged: Leading Teams, Shaping Futures

Kevin Hawkins is a Product Design & Research Director based in Barcelona after living & working across the USA, Europe, and Asia. With over 17 years of experience in product design, UI engineering, and data visualization, he leads multidisciplinary teams of designers, researchers, front-end engineers, and product marketers to deliver intuitive, high-converting solutions. Previously, Kevin was the Global UX Director at Glovo, Director of Product Design at BookClub, and UX Team Lead at Booking.com, where he managed award-winning design teams of up to 105, launched innovative products, and scaled customer-centric strategies. He is also a seasoned instructor and global public speaker with courses at GrowthTribe, General Assembly, and Georgetown University. As a gay, Liberian-American, he is passionate about building diverse and inclusive teams, and he enjoys traveling to learn from different cultures.

Wolfgang Bremer is a German-Canadian award-winning design veteran with over 20 years of experience and a rare combination of design and product knowledge. As a design leader in multiple Fortune 500 companies and highly funded startups, Wolfgang has managed global design teams and worked on products used by tens of millions of users in 190+ countries. Equipped with an entrepreneurial mindset, creative problem solving skills, and an excellent eye for detail, he drives product design & development and creates outstanding consumer & business products. In short, Wolfgang likes building products and simplifying people’s lives.

Carlsson Chee is a seasoned design leader and technologist with over 17 years of international professional experience. He specialises in connecting business strategies with human behavior, cultural considerations, and research-driven design. Carlsson is known for his ability to design scalable and innovative award-winning products and services, where his work has contributed significantly to sustainable growth and enhanced customer experiences—in both past and present roles. Currently, Carlsson is with Standard Chartered, where he collaborates closely with engineers and business stakeholders to consolidate and improve user experience with more inclusive processes that drive engineering efficiency and bank growth. Additionally, he is active in mentoring and sharing his insights on design and technology through newsletters, podcasts and occasional articles on various platforms.

With nearly three decades in design, Mario Van der Meulen [mvdm] is a visionary leader, crafting human-centric strategies for forward-thinking companies to deliver real business impact.

Megan has been in the design industry for close to 20 years. She stumbled upon the field of user experience after being rejected for many graphic design roles because she wanted to create work that was intuitive, rather than just good-looking. She started out her UX career specialising in form design, and has worked for many of Australia’s tech giants over the years. Megan lead the Design and UX Research team at 99designs for 6 years, up until their acquisition where she joined the Vista UX Leadership team as a Senior Director of UX.