Mariel Maciá 
Lead Service Designer
McKinsey & Company

Presenter Profile: Long ago I was a Media Designer who specialised in Film Direction. When YouTube was new, I directed a short-film that got 1 million views – quite rare at the time! – This opened a door for me to work in digital marketing. When technology revolutionised media and design thinking revolutionised business, I discovered my passion for human centered design. I joined an innovation hub to support start-ups by bringing the human centred  design perspectives into innovation projects. 

Moving to my next opportunity, I embraced the challenge of evangelising service design and building the practice in an agency while leading our team together with our global clients to develop projects connected with product design and cultural transformation. 

In 2020, I joined McKinsey as a Lead Service Designer who empowers interdisciplinary teams to design and implement a multi-year people, processes and technological transformation of a global function.

Presentation Title: The power of design leadership and diversity to drive innovation.

Outline: The power of design leadership and diversity to drive innovation The open conversation about the business and human value for inclusion and diversity is stronger than ever. The evidence that diversity in leadership and team composition enable companies to out-innovate and out-perform others is validated with market examples and widely shared. However, there is still a long way to go to integrate the full potential of working with diverse teams in our day to day. By sharing some personal experiences as a design leader who not only foster but embodies diversity, we will look at some relevant research around the business case for inclusion as well as strategies to embrace the power of differences to drive innovation. How might we recruit, retain and empower diverse team members to feel safe, speak up and thrive? HMW create a culture which gives diverse voices equal airtime and foster teams to value different point of views? HMW get buy-in from senior stakeholders to open up to new ideas? HMW persuade those in charge of resources to invest them to develop those ideas? This talk aims to trigger self-reflection and equip you with tools to unleash the full potential and creativity of your team.

Company Website: https://www.mckinsey.com/