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Having built teams from scratch, I know how hard it is to find the right candidate for any role. Therefore, I have designed this page so you can quickly evaluate my leadership path by skimming through the top 10 milestones that have shaped me into the leader I am today. It’s around a five-minute read.
I hope you find this approach effective.
Cheers!
Top 10 milestones that shaped me as a leader
Mobilising the Community to Share Our UX Skills for Good
In 2013 a new UK educational curriculum was published, introducing the concept of teaching children as young as five how to code. In 2015, at Talk UX, I challenged the new emphasis on computer programming in UK schools and asked the UX community to join me: “I believe our school’s digital revolution shouldn’t be about teaching children how to code, but how to inspire them to become [digital] makers.” In order to focus the mobilisation of the UX community, I founded UX for Change. This was my first step in Product Design leadership career.
2015
2016
Introducing the Concept of UX to Hundreds of Children
During the first year of UX for Change, we partnered with world-renowned charity Apps for Good, whose purpose is to ensure all young people – especially those experiencing disadvantage – have the tech innovation skills to thrive in an ever-changing world. Members of UX for Change joined Apps for Good to share their expertise in UX Design; With every video call or visit to schools, they gave feedback and advice to students on their app idea. Within a year of founding UX for Change, hundreds of children had benefited from the concept. As a result, I won the 2016 Apps for Good Impact Prize: Expert of the Year.
Helping Shape Legislation at the FSA
I joined Just Eat in 2016 as a Principal UX Designer. During my first few months, I realised that Product Design Leadership was nonexistent in the business. Therefore critical initiatives such as the 2017 rebrand were at risk of failing to reach their full potential. Simultaneously, Just Eat was having conversations with the Food Standard Agency (FSA) on the future of the online food ordering legislation. Although I was not working on the team assigned to these initiatives, I volunteered to be part of the conversation, ensuring the legislation’s outcome was user-centred and beneficial for any online food ordering business.
2016
2018
Being Part of the Ethics Panel Alongside UX Legends
After having been promoted to Head of UX at Just Eat (my first Product Leadership role in a commercial setting) and while starting the expansion of UX for Change to the United States (New York was the first city), I was invited to join the Ethical Dilemmas in UX panel at UXLive 2018. The invitation was a huge milestone for me, given that the other panelists were legends in the field of ethics in UX, including Rolf Molich, who co-invented the Heuristic Evaluation method, and authors Mike Monteiro and Cennydd Bowles. Feeling like a rookie on this panel, I shared what I had learned leading projects with social impact at UX for Change.
Collaborating with Best-selling author Nir Eyal
In 2016 I became a Pluralsight author. This experience helped me appreciate the amount of work that goes into authoring any publication. Therefore, I have committed to making myself available to collaborate on publications related to topics I’m passionate about. In 2019 I was working on my subsequent Pluralsight, UX Strategy Fundamentals, and to my surprise, I was invited to collaborate on Nir Eyal’s latest book Indistractable. This book won the Outstanding Works of Literature Award and was recognised by The Globe and Mail as ‘the best business book of 2019.’
2019
2020
I had an awesome evening yesterday at @UXForChange 🎂 and I’m flattered by the mention on my career journey from graphic design into UX design and collaboration with @EmpowerHack in the project @drawmylifeteam THANKS for the insights and great presentations! https://t.co/u7e2FxJHjP pic.twitter.com/RvcXMYkkFX
— Rocio Leon (@rocioooleon) March 11, 2020
Seeing Designers I Supported Blossom Into Top-notch Jobs
In 2020 we celebrated five years of UX for Change. Reflecting on what the community has accomplished, I am very proud of the aspiring UX Designers who joined us while switching careers or landing their first job. By working with nonprofits, we created a space for these aspiring designers to build their skills while helping good causes; now, many early members of UX for Change are working in well-known companies such as the BBC and Monzo. To guide myself through my Leadership journey, I have developed four Leadership Principles. The time I dedicated to these designers – reviewing portfolios, doing mock interviews and inviting them to UX for Change events – embodies my leadership principle of “Paying it Forward.”
My experience supporting designers at all different levels has been instrumental to empowering junior members of my team to deliver experience that at first glance can only be deliver with magical powers.
Working Side-by-Side With the Executive Team to Sell NOTHS
At the end of 2020, I became part of the hand-picked group of people that the executive team at Not On The High Street (NOTHS) chose to assist them in selling the company. I was the only Product Leader in the group, and my main task was to sell the product vision that I had created with the support of other product team members. It was an exhilarating experience because it was up to me to give the investors confidence in where the executive team wanted to take the consumer and partner products. By early 2021, Great Hill Partners, a Boston private growth-equity firm, bought the majority of NOTHS.
2021
2022
Delivering a Vulnerable Talk at Interaction 22 (IxDA)
A year after the pandemic had taken us all by surprise, I started reflecting on my motivations to become a Design Leader; I then realised a parallel between my reflection and how others were coping with such a lengthy lockdown. The common denominator was Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG).
As a person who has thrived on PTG, I felt the responsibility to open up about my experience in the hopes that other members of the design community can feel seen. Therefore, I gathered all the emotional strength necessary to share these parallels and created a vulnerable talk for UXLive 2021. This talk was my first IRL conference since 2019, so I wanted it to be memorable. With this goal in mind, I decided to experiment with concepts around evolving my persona while on stage. The response to this talk was phenomenal, and as a result, I was invited to deliver it at Interaction 22 (IxDA).
Representing My Culture at London Pride 2022
I believe in bringing my whole self to any situation, including my career. Doing so is essential to my ability to connect and inspire others. With this in mind, I am never shy to share parts of what makes me whole, such as my passion for Afro-Latin American dance and music, in the hope of elevating my culture with the performing arts. For example, in 2022, my dance group, Somos Chibchas, was invited to perform at the 50th London Pride Parade. That day I realised how much we could accomplish when we bring our whole selves to any situation and the positive impact it will have on future generations.
2022
2023
Influencing NOTHS Three-Year Business Plan
During the 2022 NOTHS rebrand, it was clear to me that the company needed a customer value proposition (CVP) to achieve its ambitions. One of the most challenging yet exciting aspects of leadership is when I can see an apparent missing piece in the business strategy toolkit, but no one else is talking about it. This is when my contribution as a leader has the most value and can bring significant impact. Therefore, I advocated for creating a CVP and secured buy-in from key members of the executive team, giving me all the resources to kick it off. Once finished, it resonated so much with everyone, including the investors, that NOTHS’s three-year business plan was based on it. I was then asked to also fascilitate the creation of the partner and employee value propositions, as well as the company’s purpose.