Speakers
Lola Oyelayo Pearson
Director of Product
Lola Oyelayo-Pearson is digital design and product strategist, with a wealth of experience running in-house and agency Design and Product teams. Having just completed a stint heading up a multidisciplinary User Experience team at Shopify in Toronto, she’s preparing to take up a new role leading Product at a new Blockchain startup, focused on realising the powerful utility of the technology, for commerce.
Prior to Shopify, her experience includes leading the UK Design team for Capital One, heading up proposition design for a highly regarded blockchain start-up, and leading a successful products and services agency that was consequently bought by Cognizant.
A passionate technophile, Lola operates at a strategic level, helping organisations to see the bigger picture and focus on the outcomes that matter in order to establish high-performing Design and Product cultures.
Speaking at The Rest of the Fest
Why You Need To Lead Design In Hostile Environments
Design Leadership is tough. Tough because many of us in these rapidly evolving and newly expanded roles have no precedents. The ambiguity of leader vs manager puts us at perennial risk of Imposter Syndrome and sometimes outright failure.
Consider then, the challenges of leading Design in hostile environments. Places where we have been brought in by a visionary, but the rest of the world is yet to catch up. Places where our skills are desperately needed and for us, our mission is clear and important. How do you navigate the hostility, build your team and make an impact?
Using her personal experiences working across a range of digital teams, including a blockchain infrastructure start-up, this talk aims to provide the audience with a mindset and tools for leading Design in said environments.
Lola will set out a way of diagnosing the characteristics of the environment, the tools that serve us best and the behaviours we can adopt to make the space for your team to do great Design.