It Takes a Team

As the head of UX at The Financial Times, Annmarie is responsible for User experience design, across the organisation. She heads up a multi-talented team of UX designers responsible for designing the FT's digital experiences for our global audience as well as the internal systems and tools used by the business and editorial teams.

Annmarie joined The Financial Times in September 2016 after a lifetime at digital agencies such as Digitas LBi and Agency.com helping companies such as British Airways, BT, Lloyds bank, Avis, Dulux and Marks & Spencer transform digitally and innovate their services for the complex needs and behaviours of the modern customer.

Passionate as ever about user centered design and putting yourself in the users shoes at every step of the creative process, Annmarie believes empathy is at the heart of creating a great customer experience.

Paolo Malabuyo is a user experience designer, creative leader, and educator. He's currently a Director of User Experience for YouTube Advertising at Google, where he leads an international team of designers and researchers responsible for enabling a healthy ecosystem for YouTube and its billions of users worldwide, and an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley, where he teaches a graduate-level course on Human-Computer Interaction & User Experience.

He has a uniquely broad portfolio of experience working across: consumer to enterprise; blue sky to blue ­chip; hardware, software, and service; TV, desktop, mobile, and automotive; entertainment to productivity; platform to content. Previous highlights include the Netflix global experience on the web & TV devices, the Mercedes-Benz ''Luxury In Motion'' autonomous driving research car, the Xbox 360 game console & Xbox Live online service, and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge video game for Xbox.

Originally from the Philippines, he studied Art & Design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and now lives & works in Silicon Valley.

Kevin Lee is Vice President and Head of Design at Visa, Inc, responsible for setting the vision and the strategy of design and user experience in Europe and CEMEA. Previously he was responsible for building and leading Visa's global digital design team and brought in human-centered design and design thinking expertise to help designing the innovative digital product experiences as well as innovative design systems platform which has been recently recognized by Fast Company for 2017 Innovation by Design Awards.

Prior to Visa, Kevin led the design studio at Samsung responsible for the overall product strategy and design of wearable and IoT and launched Gear Fit, Level and Circle. Kevin also led the global design team at eBay and Paypal, where he led the design efforts on several key products such as checkout, shopping cart, and shopping showcase to name a few. Prior to eBay, Inc., Kevin led the design team at Whirlpool Corporation designing and launching the company's first digital touch screen consumer products and connected device strategy with several CES awards and industry recognitions. Before Whirlpool, Kevin led a global cross-functional team of designers and engineers at GE Healthcare driving and launching award-winning software and hardware products, one of which is called Vscan where it was named by TIME magazine as The 50 Best Inventions of 2009.

He has a M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, and graduated from Mercer University with a B.S. in Technical Communication / Ergonomics. Kevin is contributing author for several books and keynote speaker and presenter at some of the influential design conferences in the world.

Started out as an artist, but fell into tech through my love of logic.
Accidentally formed a company producing flash animations and games.
Sold out and became a front-end tech lead for an ad agency. Got bored
and wanted to go freelance but was approached by adyen. After 5+ years,
really enjoying the ride. Still making and showing paintings.

Emmet is Director of Product Design at Intercom where he helps a growing, global design team to create and ship the best work they can. Before joining Intercom Emmet worked for Google in Zurich and San Francisco. There he designed Google Flight Search, and co-founded and designed Android Wear. He got an MA in Digital Art from the University of Plymouth mostly by accident. He lives in Dublin with his wife and two children on purpose.

Richard graduated from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK in 1994 with a degree in Software Engineering that he didn't know what to do with. In 1999, two web-design start-ups later, he moved to the US. He's been leading design teams in large organizations ever since, first with Vanguard, then at USAA and now in New York City as Head of Design for Capital One's 450-strong design organization.

Richard is active in the design community, having spoken at conferences across the country on the topics of design leadership, measurement, and the importance of experience management systems. He chaired the 2008 IA Summit in Miami which gave him a new appreciation for conference organizers everywhere.

He has an unhealthy obsession for Mental Model diagrams. His table tennis and juggling are good, his guitar playing is not, and he gets very uncomfortable writing third-person bios of himself.

David Hoang leads a team of product designers who focus on human-centered design, rapid prototyping, and continous learning. He was previously an early member of ExactTarget's global accounts team, founder of an agency, Brand and Global Digital Marketing at HTC, and Director of Design at Black Pixel. He's had the pleasure of working with great clients such as Expedia, Inspirato, Nike, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Whole Foods and several other undisclosed accounts.

He is currently the Head of Product Design at One Medical where he leads the design function and works with engineering and product leadership.

David has a BFA in Visual Arts and his work is profoundly influenced by art, narrative and popular culture. He's based in San Francisco, California but his heart is in New York City.

Matias Pietila is a usability expert with a strong focus on mobile design. During the past 10 years he's been involved in more than 100 projects, creating services that delight several million end-users. 

Matias is the head of design at Qvik, one of the leading mobile agencies in the Nordics. He started there as the first non-developer, improving the ways designers and developers work together. For the past few years he's been working at the other intersection, figuring out how to bring designers closer to the business. Creating measurable impact is always the goal, both in terms of happy users and improved business metrics. 

Some highlights from Matias' client projects include working as a design lead in the main mobile products of companies like Yle (the Finnish national broadcasting company) and Tallink (the largest cruise ship operator in the Baltic Sea).

Matias got his M.Sc. degree in Aalto University studying cognitive technology and usability engineering. 

Thijs is VP Product Design at WeTransfer. Leading projects and teams for the company since 2011, his main objective is to build strong relationships with users through relevant, obvious, and inspiring experiences.