It was a truly fascinating opportunity to speak with Uta Knablein about her UX design team's work doing research and design at iHeartRadio during the pandemic. Uta offers much-needed tips on how to manage a design team remotely. Onboard new team members remotely presents a challenge in these times and Uta talks about how she handles it. She talks about how she subscribes to servant leadership style, which is reflected in how she looks after her team as they made the adjustment to remote working during difficult times. I was also intrigued to hear about changing radio listening habits during the pandemic and how her team brings user research, data, and design together to address listener needs during Covid-19.

Uta is the EVP of UX /Product Design for iHeartRadio. Under her leadership, the UXD team connects iHeartMedia’s digital music, radio, and podcast service to its users’ ever-changing lifestyles, technologies across 280 platforms. Uta leads user-centered product research efforts and helps optimize iHeartRadio’s digital products for the best customer experience. Knablein is known to be a servant leader, a habitual question asker, approach defined, and a skill-fluid lifelong learner.