Fail Faster

Stephen Fritz is the Executive Design Director at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Stephen talks about his path of growth spanning over 20 years as a Design leader shaping some of the world's largest brands. He is an expert in Design Thinking, Human Centered Design, and Agile. He shares how he combined his interest in sketching and music to bring order to his creativity which brought him amazing opportunities to advance his design career with brands like Viacom, MTV, Comedy Central, AMC, Nickelodeon, Honeywell, Deloitte, SONY, and many more. His failures thought him that finding great criticism is highly invaluable in one career path if you can get over the hurt. He shares a lot about where the market is heading and how designers have to shift their mindset to stay relevant.

Kevin Erdner, Senior Director of Product Management at LabCorp joins us. He takes us back in time to when his career started in the Media industry, where he won an Emmy award for software he helped create. After that glamorous success, Kevin aligned his skills with a purpose that could make a deeper impact. Now Kevin brings his passion for creating software with a purpose and his skills from performing improv comedy to his role to unlock the creativity in every team member, creating inspired, fun cultures to transform the product management team from good to great.

Shravan Chandrasekaran heads Product Management at Marsh McLennan, the world's leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy, and people. Shravan shares his winding path to this role and how he drives the process of product discovery and delivery with different functions in the enterprise keeping them aligned toward one goal. He is set to transform his current challenges into major growth in 2023.

David Kazaryan, Head of Product Design at CreditWise at Capital One joins us to share his very interesting path where his passion for art forms like paintings, music, and graphic design got expression in the advertising industry. Followed by a fascination for products when the iPhone launched and app experiences took us all over by storm. David became super interested in user behavior and how providing personalized context could influence user behavior and experience. Taking the same principle of providing context can be a game-changer for designers and the effectiveness of their work. When product leaders provide business context to their design teams they operate at the level of business partners and stakeholder buy-ins become a piece of cake resulting in a successful and integrated business model.

Amy Pogue Brady is the VP of Service Design Strategy at US Bank joins us to share her very intriguing journey leading to her current role. In this episode, Amy unpacks her process of uncovering hidden patterns, discovering symptoms, arriving at deep-rooted problems, and then solving them. She is not afraid to be vulnerable as she opens up to share her experience through the tough years of her career as she was evolving into the leader she is today. This episode shines the light on some real challenges most leaders have faced and have hopefully come out on the other side molded into more compassionate humans and leaders.

Ken Hubbell is a pragmatic futurist. He designs for tomorrow and builds for today. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, video production, and game design with a Masters in Instructional Technology and Innovation. He has been developing software tools and educational products for over three decades. Ken is currently Chief Product Officer for Soffos.ai where they are developing natural language processing products and low-code/no code AI components.

Teil Wise is a creative problem solver who is committed to building positive and collaborative cultures that allow dedicated, effective teams to thrive. He combines the passion for human-centered design with a fascination for technology to inspire those around him to create engaging and memorable experiences. Professionally, he has over 15 years of leadership experience in the design industry and have worked with some of the world's most recognizable brands including IKEA, Adidas, ebay, Sotheby's, Lysol, Vanguard, Georgia Pacific, Nickelodeon, Comcast, MLB, NASCAR, ESPN, Toys R Us, Babies R Us and Tumi. he motivates the people around him to realize their strengths, embrace their passions and hone their craft. He loves going on adventures with his family, enjoys trying new and interesting cuisines and conducting impromptu photo shoots. Once the wife and kids are fast asleep, he can be found geeking-out over vintage sci-fi and horror movies as well as his collections of guitar pedals, vinyl records and 8-bit video games.

Anu Shetty is a passionate Product Director at Nationwide Insurance. She joins us to share her story of why she likes being in the product space. Anu shares how she approaches the fine balance of handling complex projects keeping the user impact and business goals in mind. She is always figuring out new ways to deliver work faster by keeping her teams engaged and on board even in the chaos. Let's dive into Anu's behind the scene world of enhancing the billing and payment experience for the end users she serves every day.

Valerie Vacante is an award-winning global innovator; she is the VP of Solutions Innovation for Dentsu, where she uncovers cultural trends, commerce dynamics and emerging technologies to shape next-generation product innovations, and solutions impacting the way people connect and experience in the physical and digital world. Val is the co-creator behind Dentsu NXT Space, a co-space for rapidly realizing the future of the metaverse in collaboration with Microsoft and HeadOffice.space. Val is also the co-creator of ShopNXT™ — Dentsu's retail innovations focused on helping brands create more personalized shopping experiences increasing loyalty, sales, and customer joy. Additionally, Val architected and launched NXT Intelligence™ an innovation platform featuring 12 technology, innovation, and brand solutions designed to rapidly explore, evaluate and evolve business growth opportunities. She is also the Founder of the strategy and innovation firm Collabsco; where she pioneered award-winning digital products and connected experiences across IoT, AR, VR, voice, robotics, and the first connected play landscape featured in VentureBeat, The Drum, VRScout, and more. Val has recently been named one of the Top 25 Women in Tech by PCR magazine, The Most Powerful Women in Technology, 2022 by CIO Views and 40 Over Forty.