Aditi Sharma
Building Inclusive Enterprise Design Teams
In this episode of Brave UX, Aditi Sharma openly discusses being woman of colour in banking, how she’s building a diverse and inclusive design culture, and why she’s used design to dismantle injustices.
Highlights include:
- What was it like growing up as the youngest of three girls in India?
- Was it personally risky to help bring female condoms to women in India?
- Is it fair to characterise the banking industry as a boys’ club?
- Why isn’t design seen as the most important or credible voice in the room?
- What do aspiring design leaders need to know about design leadership?
Who is Aditi Sharma?
Aditi is an Executive Director of Digital Experience Design at JP Morgan Chase, a leading global financial services firm, where she is championing user-centred design and innovation in payment operations and is working to increase inclusivity, sustainability, and business growth.
Prior to joining JP Morgan Chase, Aditi was a Design Director at Accenture Interactive in New York, where she established customer-centric design programmes for clients such as Walmart, Dupont and Cargill.
A lecturer at the Pratt Institute since 2018, recognised in 2020 by Authority Magazine as an inspirational woman in STEM, and honoured by the Government of India in 2021 with the prestigious ‘Dr. Sarojini Award’, Aditi is certainly someone to watch in design.
Transcript
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hello, and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, Managing Founder of The Space InBetween, the home of New Zealand's only specialist evaluative UX research practice and world-class UX lab, enabling brave teams across the globe to de-risk product design and equally brave leaders to shape and scale design culture. Here on Brave UX though, it's my job to help you to put the pieces of the product puzzle together. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of world class UX, design and product management professionals. My guest today is Aditi Sharma. Aditi is the Executive Director of Digital Experience Design at JP Morgan Chase, a leading global financial services firm that serves clients in over 100 countries and has done so for over 200 years. At the firm, Aditi is championing user-centered design and innovation in payment operations. And through design is working to increase inclusivity, sustainability, and business growth.
- Prior to joining JP Morgan Chase, Aditi was the Design Director at Accenture Interactive in New York, where she established customer-centric design programs for clients such as Walmart, DuPont, and Cargill. Passionate about design education Aditi lectures at the Pratt Institute where she's helping the next generation of designers to understand the finer points of practicing UX. Aditi also regularly shares her knowledge at conferences, on podcasts, and in publications such as CX Network, South by Southwest, and Product Led Alliance. Recognized in 2020 by Authority Magazine as an inspirational woman in STEM and honored by the Government of India in 2021, with the prestigious Dr. Sarojini award, Aditi is certainly someone to watch in design. And now, it is my pleasure to welcome her to this conversation with me on Brave UX today. Aditi, welcome to the show.
- Aditi Sharma:
- Hi, Brendan. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm very, very, very excited to have you here too. I know we've been speaking about this for a couple of months, Aditi, and it's great to have you on the show. And as you know, I like to do a bit of research for these conversations. Now, I understand that your parents are both economists and that you are the youngest of three girls. Tell me what was it like for you growing up in India?
- Aditi Sharma:
- It's so amazing I've, I've heard your other pod podcast interviews as well, and it's so amazing the research that you put into every one of them. It makes it special. And I knew the moment that I was coming into a podcast with you that is going to be special. And when you ask me this question, it takes me back to a special time, an easier time where I was growing up in India, being the youngest of three girls, the society at the time. And I think we are making great progress towards a much more equitable society for everybody, whichever gender you may identify with. But at the time, it was really hard for my parents to have another girl child in the family and cause of which they went through a lot of financial troubles as well because they were really asked to leave the family inheritance behind.
- That meant that having a girl was something that almost was like a stigma at the time. And both of my parents believed in education, believed in empowering girls, and that's what they gave me. They made sure that their girls studied and focused really heavily just not on their education, but also on educating people around them. And by education, I not just mean literacy, but really helping another human being discover who they are, grow that, and retain that over years. So that's what I learned from them and I think it had such a special impact on me because both of them were social workers as well. My mother was an educator, still is, and my father was an economist and he would work with marginalized communities and get them government aid. So I saw both of them with my mother going into underprivileged communities, going to these some areas and really pulling out girls and paying for their education and paying for their fees to make sure that they would come out of that environment.
- And my father there was sort of doing the same thing but for communities and really helping them find sustainable independence, financial independence. So I saw that growing up and that had such a huge impact. I saw them solving for problems in spite of limited resources. And that was in itself such a creative genius moment for me. And I always found creative ways all through my childhood I would draw up these different images that I would see on the street. I would pick up materials and I would build things and at the same time being, yes, a stereotype, but I was also preparing to be a doctor. So being a doctor on one side and being a designer on the other, that was an easy choice for me because I knew that my parents would support this very creative endeavor and they did ultimately. But I do know that all of that growing up understanding and finding your way and really carving your way, a lot of people tell me that I have a chip on my shoulder and [laugh] seen that in my design journey as well, that going for beyond the best even with constraints and complexity, the kinda work that I do today.
- So I really think it's connected that full circle for me where I've been okay with ambiguity, I've been okay with not having enough and I've been okay with having it hard but still making my way.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You spoke a word in particular when you first started describing what it was like growing up in India to have another girl in the family you mentioned it was almost like there was a stigma attached to that. And I recently watched a Ted Woman talk by Lily Singh and she was talking there about the seat at the table when it came to the entertainment industry and being a woman of color with Indian heritage. And she also talked about the stigma and it seems to me at least that cut quite deeply to her. And she talked about meeting her grandfather and the closing of that circle in terms of the patriarchal kind of toxicity that exists around gender. In that respect, how, if at all, does that still weigh on you, you know, spoke about having a chip on your shoulder or other people have described that almost societal disappointment. Is that something that you have internalized and that you have carried with you, or is that something that you have let go?
- Aditi Sharma:
- I really think I've taken that disappointment and I've turned that into hope and it's given me tons and tons of courage to stand up, to find my voice and to never give up really. And when you're told no a lot of times then you find a way to turn that no into a yes. And that's something again that I see in my work a lot when I'm working with my stakeholders as well. Probably I'm not getting a lot of headway, but I know that I can be persistent and I'll make my way. But I think my father had a huge influence in how I approach my relationship with patriarchy overall. And he always told me growing up that you need to stop thinking about differences and you need to start celebrating the commonalities and go for that and look for the merit in people and build your own merit.
- There's a saying in Hindi I'll translate it in English, but it's almost like when someone's drawing a line, you need to make a line that's much longer than the other person's line. That's the only way that you can prove yourself to be worthy. It's not necessary to cut down on someone's line, but it's really about building your own journey and finding your way. And when I think about that, and I'm a married woman, and when I got married as well, I know that there's a ton of responsibility that comes with that, especially as an Indian woman where you are expected to have children at a certain age, you're expected to get married at a certain age, you are expected to marry a certain kind of man as well. So everything's almost pre-decided for you as you are born into a family. And I think that given the great fortune that I had, the parents that I had growing up, they always let me celebrate who I was.
- So I never felt that I was being smaller than anyone else and I could find a way to connect with the other person despite of their demographics, despite of how they thought or the experiences that they had. And I think I made that more like a learning experience for me because that was the way that I saw me and my family survive. And when there were harder times economically as well. And I know that my parents would give up on their own things to help us have a future. So that respect for me has really turned this disappointment sometimes that I've seen. And I talk to so many Indian girls out there who are finding their way into design and they're trying to make really their voices heard. A lot of married women also reach out to me and they ask me about what is it like to have a career after getting married, choosing not to have kids at a certain age, even these simple sort of decisions that maybe, and I see a lot of other women as well, going through similar questions and similar judgements if you'll but ideally think that it's about finding that in a voice within you, going back to who you are as a human being and then what do you represent in the world and then your society at large, what are you bringing to the table?
- And by bringing more value to the table every time, I think that's how we neutralize the problems and the injustices that we've gone through as a race and as a community really. So yeah, there's a lot that I've internalized. There's a lot that I bring to my work every day by doing my very best and bringing my most authentic self to work every day. And that comes from a place of constant struggle and really finding that yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. If you keep Shaw Shang redemption, you just need to keep just going at it and you'll really make a tunnel.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- He spoke about light and I couldn't help but think to myself that you are starting to cast quite a long shadow. And it seems to me that you've had excellent role models in your parents and amongst a society that may not have been as conducive at the time that you were born to those type of ideals that they've instilled in you and the grit and the determination that is clearly evident and how you've approached your career. I also want to come to something else that's quite evident, particularly in people who have moved from their country of birth to other countries. And you are someone who has done that. You've left India, you've gone to originally, I believe it was Loughborough University in the uk. You then moved to New York and now you are back across the pond in London working for the bank. Given what you experienced growing up, your memories of India, the tie that you clearly have there in terms of family and ancestry, but also what you've experienced elsewhere in the world in these very large energetic Western cities, can you see yourself returning at any point to live and work in India?
- Aditi Sharma:
- My entire family keeps asking me that question and I think if they were
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Sorry about
- Aditi Sharma:
- That. No, no. All good. Maybe it's time to answer it. I really have been avoiding it and the reason why I've been avoiding it, Brendan, is because I'm learning so much. I'm having such a great time being in this community where there's excellence everywhere that I look like everywhere that I'm looking. The colleagues that I work with at JP Morgan amazing talent, both at our offices in the US and here in UK, is just the sort of disciplines that I got exposure to being at Lara, studying industrial design, learning about inclusive design. And I remember stepping into my class one time and there was this discussion around inclusive design and where they said, Hey, you're an Indian, what are you doing in this class? Inclusive design is all about communities that have figured out the basics and then they can think about accessibility, but you guys haven't even figured out the basics.
- And I remember Commonwealth games were coming up, so I felt embarrassed, but at the same time I stood up for my country and I said that there is an Indian sitting in this class today and learning about accessibility and inclusivity, which in itself is such a great step towards that vision where yes we'll have better resources, we'll have better capabilities, and we'll have better access to the resources that probably we don't have today. And I still believe in that vision. And the reason why I ventured out to Lara or to New York, all of these schools that I went to, was just to get that exposure to other design languages. And I think design in itself is such an intricate almost it's very Roma romantic to me. My husband tells me that I almost have this romance with design where sometimes I'm having a little fight where I'm going through that creative block and sometimes it's just amazing and it's like a first date.
- So that exploration that I go through with my relationship with design is only cause I could get exposure to the international culture that design is. And design is that language that can take away barriers of hey, you come from a different background or a different culture and you look differently, you talk differently. I think when we were put pen to paper and I remember sketching a lot as a designer and we would just talk about the sketches and we would just talk about how to improve each other. And I think that's what I found. So there's still a lot to be learned. At the same time, I haven't given up on my Thai in India. I'm very connected to India. You mentioned at the beginning the amazing research that you did, Brendan, that the Doctors Nadu award was the store on me. Cause I did all of this work with the Indian Society and the Indian government specifically when I had my design studio back in India I was working on social enterprise enterprise.
- I was also working on more recently with the pandemic relief efforts and those opportunities that I could connect communities and I could bring corporations, international corporations to work with those Indian communities specifically in remote areas that didn't have access to healthcare like that in itself, that impact I could have cause of my exposure that allowed me to meet these amazing people. So I really think there's work to be done. India will always be my motherland. And I don't think that, I'll never say that, Hey, I'll never be back in India. I know that I will probably retire in India and see what I can do in the meantime to keep doing things that I am able to do virtually with the connections that I've made and the amazing friends that I have, the colleagues in design and cross-functional partnerships, product or technology. I hope I can bring that learning back to India and help it to continue to grow the way that it's been. I think design culture in India has come a long way. So there's hope again, light at the end of the tunnel.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well, if your parents are listening to this and maybe some of the rest of your extended family, they'll clearly be delighted to hear that there's light at the end of that tunnel. I wanna come back to something that you said Aditi regarding your work through your social impact agency, which I believe was called Esha. Now you created a campaign for the Indian government, which is I believe where this award is has stemmed from through part of your work doing this. And this really caught my attention as well because part of what you did through Esha was you worked on some packaging design for female condoms. Now we've just spoken about the Indian society being patriarchal and all the other things we've spoken about with regards to the view of female children. This strikes me as a particularly brave design project to be involved in. Was this at all risky for you to do?
- Aditi Sharma:
- Definitely risky for me to do. And this started first with my own family, not understanding it in the first go. And there's the whole idea of, I know that India is a land of katra, but even the whole idea of sex in India is such a huge stigma. Again, it's so hushed and people don't openly talk about sex education. People don't talk about access of toilets to girls because, which a lot of girls are not going to school. So there's a lot of things that are wrong because we don't feel comfortable having open conversations. And when you stop having open conversations, it leads to these disparities that continue to prop up, whether it's access to healthcare, whether it's access to education, whether it's access to even safety, whether it's psychological safety, emotional safety, or just physical safety as women. And in India you see the impact of that.
- You know, go out to Bollywood movies and there's all of these romantic ideas about what love is about, how it's OK for men to really chase a girl down the street and they're singing a song. So it's all good, but then there's audiences out there who are really taking that out in public. So it really doesn't leave a lot of resources for women to feel safe and secure when they're stepping out, when they're just being themselves. And when they're exploring their own womanhood, they're not given a chance to do that. And I remember coming across this topic because UN was raising this topic at the time for women health and safety. And to me it was a very important topic that had to be discussed. And at that time I was working with some local NGOs that were working with sex workers. So I had never had the opportunity to really understand what their journey was like.
- So through this project I could visit their communities and talk with these sex workers who were oppressed to say the least, and they didn't really have access to any protection whatsoever. And they were always exposed. And when I went out, when I said, okay, why not get the government to fund female condoms or female contraceptive, but both of these options are female contraceptives. A lot of these women are not really getting any prescriptions, they're just given these contraceptives. So again, nothing safe for them. It really, hi. It hinders their chances of having their babies as well in the future if they decide to have babies as well. Or just thinking about female condoms, which were so expensive, which were, I remember at the time about $2, which is like one 50 rupees, which in itself is lesser than what these sex workers are making daily.
- So when it all adds up, the resources probably on the surface might appear to be there, but they're not really getting accessed by the people who actually need them the most. So for me, that project of designing a very low cost packaging for female condoms and collaborating with the local NGOs to bring access to sex but in a protected way, in a way where they could really control their own destiny and feel safe and avoid not just the diseases, but also avoid unplanned pregnancies that gave them a be better chance at life. So for me, that project was so special. I could collaborate with these NGOs, we could come up with these packages and we called it swam in Hindi, which means independent. And being independent to me I think is what the modern day woman is moving towards.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You strike me as a bit of an activist and listening to you describe that situation in your involvement in that there is clear fire that burns within you. When was the moment that fire that was fire there was first lit? Do you remember when you first started to look at the world around you and notice these kinds of injustices and decide that you were someone that could do something about them?
- Aditi Sharma:
- Yeah, it started at my home when I would see my two sisters probably would they work really hard. They would go out there and then they would come back and probably lose a job to another man who's also going for the marketing job. But at a very foundational level, it was when I was applying to grad schools, love RA being one of them. I also got through Art Center College of Design. And at the time it was the top design school in the world and I wasn't really expecting my portfolio to be selected. And imposter syndrome, yes, it was absolutely something that I was going through and my selection came through At the time they did not offer scholarships, so I wrote to them and they offered me a scholarship as well, a good amount. So I went to my parents and I talked to them about taking out the loan, but taking out a loan in India was hard because you have to put down a collateral and only on that you would get the amount of loan that I needed.
- So at that time I realized that, and then I went for love grade school, had some friends in the uk, had great scholarship support. So worked out for me with the year that I had in terms of a time investment and the kind of exposure that I got at. But in hindsight, when I think about that moment where I knew that I was deserving, but I knew that I did not have the resources to go and get access to that education. So one personally that happened to me. And then the other thing was on a daily basis when I would see my mother going to slums and she would come back and she would be so tired and haggard and her, sorry, all over the place and she would come back and she would be so happy and just because she would've sent a girl to school.
- So that's how I remember me going, it's okay that you didn't go to this amazing design college are getting to go to this design college and look at this other girl who didn't have access to education, basic education for 10 years of her life. So even though I was curbing this very superficial desire at some level but even as a 17 year old, I understood that there are better more important things in life where you have to put yourself as second and you have to put someone else's work and put the incredible amount of compassion that you need to work with that altruism like to work without the need to be recognized for it. So I think that that's where the passion really started and I just kept going at it. And even I remember when I got into the design school when I went to my first class I was half in design world, I was half in this other world that, hey, I have left my parents behind, what am I doing here?
- I shouldn't be here at all. And my professor at the time was so strict that she wouldn't allow any student without a certain quality of work to enter the class. And even if you did enter the class, if she found your work not at a certain level, she would mark you as absent because you didn't really bring your whole self to your work. So it was teachers and movements like that and she would always mark me absent. So that's what she did for the first six months o of my module with her. But then I remember the fourth year when my parents met her, she just remembered all the amazing things and even I forgot about them and my parents remind me on and off that I would go back and she had just given us assignments to draw these straight lines on sheets of paper and then use squares to express emotions.
- So how do you use different squares to express a playful emotion or a square to express scale these different emotions that you could play with just with one geometrical form. So she had these amazing foundations of designs that she was helping us explore and that's what I kept practicing and practicing and practicing. I never gave up. And she saw that and she then gave me the highest mark in her class. Then she met my parents and then of course my parents were so happy cause she did mention the incredible passion that I showed them. And I think it was moments like that. It was moments of being pushed too hard, being pushed in that corner where I felt that, hey, nothing's going to work now. That's when that magical movement really came out, that coal and that. And I'm still in the process of becoming a diamond. I wouldn't say that I'm so far off from there, but I'm just a heated up coal now is what I would say.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And you need these people in your life like your lecturer who are willing to be kind to you, but not necessarily nice to you. And there's a huge distinction there. It's actually making me recall a story that Bob Baxley who spent some time at Apple told me on the podcast with regards to Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is someone who has a bit of a polarizing effect on people when they think about him and his leadership style. But I asked Bob if he feared Steve for that reputation that he had of being a bit of a tyrant at times. And he said no. But he said that Steve had a way of working out whether the person that he was leading or trying to get the best out of would respond better to the fear of disappointment or to just incredibly direct and sometimes on the nose feedback.
- And so you often do find that people that do go on to do great things in design have had these mentors or these leaders around them that haven't always been nice, but they have been kind. So great to hear that story. Now let's turn our attention to banking and where you are currently. Now banking has this perception out there and it's changing, like India is changing in terms of its patriarchy, but that it's a bit of a boys club and not particularly the most inclusive place to be. So as a woman and also as a person of color, is that a fair characterization?
- Aditi Sharma:
- I think a lot is changing. It's promising. There is fear. Yes, there's fear that change is not happening fast enough. That's the fear. But again, there's a lot of hope that things are moving in the right direction. And for me, diversity and inclusion have always been so important because a lot of great mentors, like you said, and great colleagues and people who came across my work, they gave me amazing opportunities to succeed. And I have always found myself doing the same now because kindness was shown to me. I seem to be finding in me more and more that I'm creating the opportunities even in banking for my team and for me, luckily the team that I've joined right now at a JP Morgan digital experience design are managing director the lady who started it all, Deborah Hirschman. She is our diversity and inclusion officer for digital platform services.
- So not only is she a woman in power in a strong design leadership role, I think she is also a great champion for inclusivity and thinking about diversity as a principal, as a shared principal. So when you have leaders like that, of course there's promise of a better future. But then I think it comes back to the environment that you're creating around you as a leader. And I feel incredibly responsible for the team that I leader JP Morgan. So today, again, very lucky to have an incredible, incredible divorce team. I have people who come from different demographic backgrounds, but also people who bring such unique experiences to the team. And I've taken that utmost care to pick the right people to make sure that not only they are coming into the door, but I'm also creating a space for them to stay to thrive, to find a career in banking, which in itself I think is such a huge deal because I see a lot of other teams sometimes doing diversity as a form of tokenization.
- I think it's so much beyond that. It's really about not just recruiting that talent, but also thinking about their career progression plans and thinking about every moment that they're spending with you in a work environment outside of that work en environment as well. What sort of messages are being shared? So I think there's subtleties in how we approach inclusive teams and by being inclusive, by being very attentive to the words to your actions, to the context that you're creating for your teams, I think it is so important because then that's the culture that you're building day in, day out. Culture is not built in a day, it's about every action that you are modeling as a leader, what are you promoting? Because change is also hard and change takes time. So you have to find things that probably are gaps today are not working well and not be afraid to highlight them.
- You need sponsors and you need people who are adopters of your change as well. So bringing that diversity into work, not just by saying, okay, I'm going to get this girl of Indian origin to lead the team, but also say, okay, what is the environment that she lead around her to be successful at what she does? Understanding the personality types of the people that you're working with. What are their practices? What are their affinities? What behaviors and cognitive patterns are they exhibiting at workplace and maybe outside of workplace as well. So many things that we can learn when we focus on conversations and when we're truly listening and going beyond the work as well. So I think for me, within banking, we've created this microculture and my design team at JP Morgan, we are known by the name of Transformers. And if it's, it's a whole franchise and we have these little design pods and they call me Opt Prime. Oh wow. That my team.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I was going to say you optimist Prime. Yeah,
- Aditi Sharma:
- Yeah, but my team is absolutely so kind. But every design pod is made up of folks who actually, one of them is someone who comes from a pharmacy background, folks who transition from being an architect to being a UX designer. There's folks who have been a sales associate and now they are a UX designer. So I think I am trying to celebrate the difference is that these guys are bringing onto the team because these conversations that I have with my team, they're fantastic. Everyone's bringing a different perspective and that's why innovation truly also starts. So by having the team culture and giving it the brand name that we did, we've now received multiple excellence awards and really the excellence awards have been a product of the open conversation, feeling safe feeling that I won't be judged, feeling that I don't need to get it right the first time feeling that, hey, you know what, I'm new to this and maybe someone else is too.
- Taking that journey together and creating moments of mentorship and sponsorship for people who are coming onto your team. So one is, hey, I'm your manager and let me give you this career guidance on how to proceed at this firm specifically. But also making sure that whenever you are in a meeting with them, modeling that behavior, creating space for everybody to speak up sharing your feedback not first, but at the very last of the conversation and maybe speaking up in a space where you are not supposed to be speaking as a junior designer, breaking the norms, asking questions and allowing space to be who you are. And then also providing that grace back to them with a lot of compassion. I think as a design community especially with so much creativity that we have, we are the right champions for diversity. We can understand people from a different lens and that's such a superpower to have.
- We can mold ourselves in any conversations. And the way that we also are so collaborative, again, it makes us amazing ambassador ambassadors for inclusivity and building that amazing culture that we can even in a space like banking, although there are some fears that we're not moving fast enough. I do think with examples like myself with an industry which are a lot of folks may not think of as glamorous I specifically work in payments operations, which is even the most non-glamorous thing in banking. So [laugh] part of what designers are thought to be doing. So I think that's really helped me develop this appreciation for how much diversity is important to understand a business core operations and then to approach it with that innovative mindset by bringing in outside perspective and always looking in. So moving towards a great future, definitely very positive and I hope that I continue to see the amazing diversity that the design community is upholding in any industry, whether it be banking or any other
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Aditi. You spoke about the need to make space for others and for diversity to be more than just a form of tokenism. And I did a bit of research into both tech generally and also into banking and just how diverse it is now. There's definitely encouraging signs as you've spoken about at the entry and middle, maybe even middle opposite of levels of leadership within firms, both in tech and banking. Now in tech still roughly eight 80% male and predominantly white and banking at least from the North American stats that I could find. According to McKinsey, 64% of financial services C-suite executives are white men and 23% are white women. That means that there's just 9% of C-suite positions for men and women and people of other genders of color. How do you feel given where you currently stand in your career, and I suppose specifically in the organization that you're in, when you hear that there's only 9% of the seats at the table available to people like you?
- Aditi Sharma:
- It definitely makes me feel [laugh] very competitive. My chip on my shoulder is shining a lot more now when I think about my smaller community that sits within IT or within banking, that's not encouraging as well. So even as a design community, we haven't embraced women leadership as much as we should be. When you look at these design schools and even at track, most of my students who are getting straight A's are women. And when I go out and when I look at the representations, even for me incidentally, I'm the first executive not the first only executive design director in the UK office for our digital experience design team, which is a great start, but I am so inspired to see more women come and join the team that I'm building. So that's why I put a lot of emphasis on promoting from within and building your leaders and bringing in these folks who are not getting represented or not getting the right support in outside forums, but for you to create that talent in house and to support that talent and promote that talent.
- Last year, three women on my team they were promoted to vice presidents. And that to me was such a great moment because on the list I saw these three women and all three of them were on my team. And to me that was a testament to what even a single leader can do because I have the right support from the leaders above me to create the space and the career path and this career ladder of breaking that glass ceiling that we are always finding ourselves stuck in. So I think it's about creating moments of recognition, creating moments of confidence, creating a space where you can have open conversations and feel OK by admitting that there's a lot more to be done. But by also saying that there's a solid governance plan. For me to bring in this change within my organization, we need to have a strategy for how to have early adopters.
- We need to have a strategy for bringing more women to schools to keep them in schools to support their education and if they find themselves in creative endeavors, supporting that as well. Not just thinking about traditional outlets of work like being a doctor or being an engineer, but really thinking about creative endeavors like being a designer or just being an actor or just being a writer. Anything that they aspire to do creating that space when they start as young girls, giving them that comfort, that safety and give, building that confidence within them by showing that day in, day out. And I think that's the upbringing that I've brought into what I do as a design leader. And I'm hoping that these three VPs they keep telling me that at some point we might end up building an all women design team. And I said, ok, that might be going to extreme as well.
- So really thinking about that balance of where you don't have to for one gender over the other, thinking about equity over equality at this time. So that I think is the most burning question for me today. What are you doing as a design leader? What are you bringing to the table? How are you influencing change? How are you having those difficult conversations with people who come from the design community, who come from the IT community, from the banking community or any other industry that you're working in? And then making sure that you're giving back to the society as well. Taking out that time maybe just once every quarter to say, I'm just going to give 30 minutes off my time coaching, mentoring, guiding this other person who probably needs it more than you.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- That's a really nice idea and a really important practice and something that's sorely lacking in most people's career journeys. Aditii, you spoke about glass ceilings and you also spoke about influencing change then. And I want to take a slightly different tech now and talk about design's role more broadly in influencing change. And it's becoming more apparent, at least in enterprise, that design is becoming more important to how the business does its business. But designers don't often feel like they're taken as seriously as perhaps they believe they deserve. Why do you feel that designers often not seen as the most important or the most credible voice in the room?
- Aditi Sharma:
- There's many, many reasons for that. I think I'll start with the first very, very important point which starts with you, with your own introspection and belief in the power of design, knowing and believing that design is important and standing by that voice, not letting someone else's opinion about their knowledge of design or the lack of influence, how you feel about design. I think it takes away a lot of confidence when you step into difficult conversations. If you think or you perceive and assume that maybe the stakeholder does not really understand design, I think let's throw away the assumptions and just walk in with the innocence of a child and then maybe you'll be disappointed and you'll be told that, Hey, I really don't care about design and you guys can come in later when I need to build up some ui. But at least you will have opened up that understanding that you're lacking this perspective of design altogether for your stakeholder.
- So I think one, it starts by you believing in the power of design and in the voice of design, but more practically and fundamentally speaking, I think for our stakeholders today, we really need to build up our business domain knowledge. As designers, we sometimes are not spending enough time to go be curious and to be a scientist and a scientist really needs to explore. A scientist needs to experiment and a scientist needs to always evaluate so that you can keep going from a hypothesis and build these theories. I think we get stuck with theories so quickly. It's like quick sand. We are sucked into it and we believe that that's the world that we shouldn't be in, but we are sometimes signing up for it because we haven't built up the curiosity to go ask the difficult questions. To question the questions really and say ask them about how do your business operations work today?
- How is JP Morgan making money? How are your services divided? Which products do you offer? How do you interact with your clients? Can I please sit with you and observe you while you attend this client call? Basic questions like this, I think it's okay to go and ask and learn and build up that business domain knowledge that will help you become valuable in any conversation. And being valuable is the most critical aspect of being considered important. So for you to come into a conversation and for you to have a say, you need to bring your own perspective and you can only bring that by understanding what's happening around you and how is the business operating today. So being curious to me, first building your voice and second being curious about what the business operations are who are the players, who are the personas? What does the client segment look like?
- What is the go-to market strategy? What's out there in the competitive landscape? I think just being ahead of the game and really engrossing yourself even in difficult topics to me is very critical to being considered important. And then the last thing to me is all about change management, which comes with strong stakeholder relationships. I think we start with the idea of that our stakeholder does not understand design, but what if we were to take a completely different understanding of that and change how we perceive design altogether and say that every designer is doing a different job today or every other person out there is a designer. Maybe we can start to blur the lines between the roles that we've carved out for what business is doing, what product is doing, what a technologist is doing. I think we've created these silos even in how we are building products.
- So we can always crack agile methodologies on a piece of paper, but unless we really understand what does an empowered product team look like? What does that right crossfunctional ratio of product design and technology and which sets do I need? That's where you can start to build products that will be the eternal and they will solve problems. They will make this world much better than what it's today. And that's the responsibility that we are carrying forward as designers into any conversations. So starting with your stakeholders, building that relationship, being open to the idea that everyone can be a designer and starting there I think is another great way to increase your influence as a design leader because now you'll start to say, I have left my ego outside of this door. I come and I'll do the best that I can. I can help you wish where you are trying to get to, I can make this meeting much more valuable for you.
- I think you need to show them incremental value and then we also need to show them that overall long-term north star vision so that you can get everyone excited towards what's coming. That's our job really. We are always in that selling mode, always saying that there's better things coming. And to me, UX is never done. So thinking about those three aspects of finding your voice and building that business domain knowledge and then strengthening your partnerships with stakeholders will help you really create those amazing products that will disrupt the market, that will enable new experiences that can change the world.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's really encouraging to hear you describe that so clearly. And I believe, or at least I hope that there's a growing appreciation and design circles that while design is a very powerful language, it's not the only language that our organizations speak. And that if we're able to step outside of our own domain and as you've suggested build those relationships, show that incremental value strengthen or break down, I should say break down those silos that we've become accustomed to operating in, that we really can start to wield more influence and do so in a way that's benefiting both design the business that we work in and also the people that we serve through the products that we are creating. I was also really captivated listening to you describe what you've just described at Aditi. Cause you are someone who, and I just wanna put this in perspective for people who just for short years ago was working in the capacity as a UX designer and now you're an executive director of design at one of the most prestigious banks in the world. How did you figure this all out because you've joined a lot of dots and what at least from the outside in seems to be an incredibly short amount of time.
- Aditi Sharma:
- To me on the inside it, it's felt like a long, long time. But I know that for me, my journey started back in India. It started as a product designer more than a decade ago. And for me, coming out of college and starting a job and not really knowing where to start and what to do, and finding this amazing place where I got to learn about product design and 3D design and urban infrastructure and building up bus shelters. So I learned all about and the engineering aspect of design, which got me interested in industrial design. So I've really moved from industrial design and understanding the core principles of design as a practice. And design to me is something that I practice not just at work, but with everything that I do. Even with how I'm making my meals to how I'm cleaning my home. I'm thinking about these basic principles of design.
- And I know some folks might be thinking she's definitely ocd, but it it's, it's so much more than just doing or sticking with one aspect of design. So I started with that industrial design, product design background, and then I transitioned to human computer interaction. And the reason I did that was because I got exposure to doing these signages for Commonwealth Games in India. And I remember I sent something into production to our factory and we used to have this factory about a hundred kilometers away from where I would work in in India. But I traveled and I figured the drawing that had sent over because I didn't really appreciate the manufacturing processes, I sent the sheet to be laser cut in the middle image of what was supposed to come out. So my production, I ended up losing [laugh], these five stainless steel, huge six by six feet sheets.
- And my boss, of course, my first job was of course quite furious to say the least. But he was very kind because he then taught me how to understand and appreciate how to be a designer by listening and learning and really immersing yourself in how products are built. So I then spent the next three months just at the shop floor, I just got an apartment close to the factory. I would go in to the factory every morning with the factory siren. And I worked with the artists who were creating all of these amazing shelters and I learned how to do pig welding. And I became the first woman at the factory to learn how to do welding. So I think I explored the multi-dimensionality of design and the different dimensions as they opened up. I understood that at the core they talk about the same principles of being human centered.
- That's the approach that I took to lovery as well. So when I went to that program and I learned about sustainability, when I learned about inclusive design, when I did 3D modeling, when I did rapid prototyping, I kept going back to that everything is about human-centered design. And when I'm thinking about a product, I need to be thinking about how will this information display on this product. I ended up creating this cubicle kitchen for my master's project at Lara, which would fit in this three meter by three meter cube. And it was for a tiny home concept and it really took off and I did all of these crazy things with the electronics and I figured out souling and my gadgets would work and my countertop would open up and I had magnetic dishes. So I tried everything with that. And then thinking about ergonomics, thinking about how would the kitchen timer display, little things like that which helped me understand that there is this other aspect of design that I'm totally fully not grasping.
- And that was human computer interaction. So my program at Prat then helped me open up what web design was and knowing that I needed to practice it right away, I worked with this design agency in London, it was called the Big Idea Group, and they would give us these freelance projects to work off of. So I would these freelance projects and I got through a couple of projects with, gosh, with British Art Foundation doing their signages. So from signages I moved to understanding how web design works and what is product design. That got me to the design agency at multimedia where I went up the ranks and I became a UX lead. From UX lead. I went to Accenture Interactive and then from Accenture to now at JP Morgan.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And that's that leap. That's the leap that I'm speaking about. There's clearly, there's the craft aspect of design and you are clearly a very curious and also a committed person to do things like move next to the factory, going with the factory workers, get your hands dirty to really understand what it is that these people are doing. Like that's an intense level of curiosity. And I would like to think also that that is something that all designers share to various degrees and something that as designers, if we can work more on that curiosity, particularly when it comes to reflecting it inwards in our organizations into the other departments and aspects of what our businesses are doing that will serve us really well. And you can learn craft. There are institutions who have been teaching craft for a long time, and craft is a beautiful thing.
- It really is. It makes our world a much better world to live in. The experiences and the designs that we can appreciate that designers have made, but design leadership joining the dots, understanding influence or as [inaudible] agenda would suggest, it's the state craft of being a designer is much more opaque to me, at least as to how designers can really fully and truly realize all the skills that they have and actually world influence within organizations. Now, I was curious about this with you because you are relatively fresh into this corporate design world, and yet, as I said, you've seen to figure out, and it's not just the words that you're saying, I really truly believe that you understand or you are at least getting a really good grasp on how to be effective in this corporate context. So for the designers that are listening to this that have aspirations to be leaders or have recently adopted a leadership position, but a feeling like they're on shaky ground, that their imposter syndrome's going through the roof and they're not really sure, what words can you share with them or what dot, can you join dots? Can you join for them now on this podcast that might help them to be more effective leaders?
- Aditi Sharma:
- I think I'm fortunate that I have amazing, amazing mentors who have really called out things that are within me, not something that I was trying to, A lot of times we all think that, I think the imposter syndrome starts with that when you don't think that you're enough and you're looking for something that's not within you outside of you, and to all the designers who are out there who are planning or starting their journey towards design leadership, I'll say just first start by believing that you have something important to share with the world. And by being observant and being highly focused, I think you can do a lot more with the same hours that everyone also probably has focusing the task that's assigned to you being present the way that I'm feeling with you as well, Brendan, right? You were here, you were in this conversation and you're truly here to know more about me.
- And that inherent curiosity, which starts from a place of genuine curiosity. You have to be genuinely interested in the topic. I don't think you can fake curiosity. You can maybe when your boss is attending one of your research sessions. But beyond that, it's really about how you carry that curiosity. Not just when you are trying to understand business processes, but also when you are having that small conversation with your product owner. Even that small conversation when you actually paid attention, this person would've talked about a business process or maybe brought up a requirement to you or maybe shared a tidbit, maybe talked about an opportunity where design could step in or lean in a little more. Those are opportunities where you can show that initiatives and start setting in those amazing stakeholder relationships. That's the beginning of that. And you start forming these little incubators, you find your people really, and then you say, wow, this person can truly talk to me.
- This person does not mind spending the time to go through this business process with me. So anytime that I have a question, I'm going to go to this person and ask them this question, I feel OK asking them this question. And I've found so many people, even at JP Morgan who are, who've become amazing friends, and I've joined JP Morgan, and I remember the very next week we went into lockdown. So I surely didn't have a chance to form in-person connections, but I found all of these connections just because I was truly, genuinely interested in what this other person was saying. When I came into JP Morgan as well, I had a very small team because my role was really about being a lead designer and going in and just doing what we needed to keep things moving. But I think I, I could go beyond that because I had amazing partnerships and people who believed that I was listening to them who believed that I was paying attention because every time I would come back into a meeting, I would bring an artifact.
- So all of these words that we were usually exchanging in a meeting were replaced by an artifact that they could react to. They could point out things that were not working well with it. And that took a lot of me, sort of disintegrating all the ego that I had gathered along the way thinking, you know what? I'm a great designer. You really have to leave all of that behind and you just have to be this other person who's marching forward. You, you're a part of the gang, you are a part of the army, and you are in the shared mission with them to make a product that's much better, a product that can truly change how this business is operating today. And I think that's a lot of responsibility. And I take my job not just because I'm passionate about it at work outside of it as well, I'm very lucky and honored that I get to do something that I'm, I'm so crazy about and I enjoy doing.
- But I take that into my work as well where we have great conversations where my stakeholders have sometimes been like, Hey, this is not great. Let's not see this ever again. And I've been okay with that. Cause I've come to realize, oh, ok, this is their perspective and maybe I need to approach the conversation or frame the conversation in a different way. And it's really about that framing, building that monumental vision with them and saying that, here are my steps and I am valuable and I can help you deliver this value to your users, to your business. And really change that bottom line because I'm here, I'm present I'm here to have that conversation with you. I'm here in your mission together to create something that's amazing and that genuineness, I think no one can really hide that. It's so, so real. And I've come across, in most of my interviews, my interviews are usually done in 15 minutes when I see someone just because, first of all, I, I'd like to do a portfolio review or maybe just a case study that they want to send along just so that I can understand the person, but then I like to do no video interviews so that I'm just having this conversation and how focused was I in that conversation?
- How much would I learn about this person? And giving yourself that opportunity to be open, to be a designer, because designer is truly someone who is trying to get perfect. You're always in that journey to perfect. You're never perfect, and that's what you're doing. You are iterating. And when you are iterating, that means that being a failure, being wrong is okay. Being vulnerable as a leader is okay. So if you're looking for that journey towards design, leadership, find your partners, believe in yourself, and always think about how are you evaluating, experimenting, exploring, and reporting back to people around you so that you're keeping them motivated as well. You're telling them that, Hey, this is what we did together and here's the impact of that. You're thinking about the business value of design that'll get you from being a designer to being a design leader when you start being valuable.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Aditi, you one of the most clever, curious, and courageous people that I have spoken with, and you're a great role model for all designers. Thank you for so generously sharing your stories and your insights with me today.
- Aditi Sharma:
- Thank you so much, Brendan. It's been such a pleasure. The questions, the conversations just a memorable time, so thank you for having me.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Oh, you're most welcome. Aditi. If people wanna find out more about you and your practice and your leadership, what's the best way for them to do that?
- Aditi Sharma:
- They can reach out to me on LinkedIn. The most active on LinkedIn. Other social media handles have given up on [laugh].
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Fair enough. Focus. Like you said, it's important to have focus. Thanks Aditi, and to everyone that's tuned in, it's been great having you here as well. Everything that we've covered will be in the show notes, including where you can find Aditi and all of the good stuff, the great stuff that we've spoken about today. If you've enjoyed the show and you want to hear more great conversations like this with world-class leaders in UX, design and product management, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review also, if you've enjoyed the conversation and pass the show along to someone else that would get value from hearing these great conversations as well. If you wanna reach out to me, you can find my LinkedIn profile at the bottom of the show notes, or just find me via LinkedIn, search under Brendan Jarvis, or you can head on over to my website, which is thespaceinbetween.co.nz. That's thespaceinbetween.co.nz, and until next time, keep being brave.