Hello and welcome to Bringing Design Closer. Our goal is to have conversations that inspire and to help move the dial forward for organisations to become more human-centred in their approach to solving complex business and societal problems.

This is HCD is almost 5-years old and we just passed 200 episodes on Apple Podcasts. We’ve been creating content regularly for that period of time, and if you want to help us out - please leave a review for us wherever you are listening. Those lovely algorithms love reviews, as it helps us grow our community - every little helps. Even if you don’t review, you can go one better by telling people you work with about the podcast. 

In this episode I speak with Michelle Walter, Head of Design Ops at ANZ bank in Australia. I’ve been connecting with Michelle for a number of months about all things strategic design. ANZ were my bank of choice in Australia, not out of a deep loyalty or anything - they weren’t the most innovative of banks for a very long time, but in September 2017 they made a big ballsy statement I felt. They hired Opher Yom Tov, a Chief Design Officer for the bank and also other key hires include the brilliant, Michelle Walter. 

In this episode we speak about length around the growth of design internally, what worked, what didn’t and how to take the business on the journey. They currently sit at 200+ designers. How do they hire? Is it purely a skills acquisition or are they hiring for purpose? 

This episode is a peek behind the curtain of an organisation who went from a Stage 2 in the design maturity ladder where design was used as styling all the way through to where now, according to Michelle, it’s used to inform strategy - stage 4.

Michelle is truly awesome and I know you will love them - let’s get into it...

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