Paul: Introduce yourself.
Yousuf: My professional journey has been both fun and rewarding, encompassing diverse roles such as a brand designer at a boutique corporate branding studio, digital producer then account director at a large ad agency, and management consultant at PwC.
You might be wondering, how did this guy start in visual design and end up leading business transformations for major corporations in Canada? Well, curiosity and an entrepreneurial spirit have been my driving forces, complemented by great mentorship along the way. These experiences have equipped me with unique vantage points for problem-solving and a versatile skill set for building solutions with incredible teams.
Today, I have the privilege of serving as the Head of Product Management and Strategic Design at PwC Canada, an iconic global enterprise with an impressive array of clients. My current practice area focuses on reimagining end-to-end customer and employee experiences. We design, build, and launch software to bring those experiences to life and enhance organizational capabilities to enable sustained success.
In my role, I foster an environment that enables pragmatic innovation, resulting in aligning siloed processes, integrating disparate technologies, and realigning incentives to successfully deliver customer/employee experiences that lead to business growth, increased customer satisfaction, and improved operational efficiency. It’s a wonderful blend of business, creativity, and technology. _ SPEAKER LINKS Host, Paul Syng: https://linktr.ee/paulsyng Guest, Yousuf Afridi: linkedin.com/in/afridi _ EPISODE LINKS Spotify, Apple, Anchor & more: https://anchor.fm/PAULSYNG CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Yousuf on writing his LinkedIn bio 00:02:06 How we met 00:07:01 When a Pakistani studying at British School in Dubai 00:20:40 Immigrating to Canada 00:27:30 Being self-taught 00:30:00 Skateboarding and emulating 00:36:28 Starting a creative business at the age of fifteen 00:44:18 Mentorship and learning the business of design 00:49:41 What Yousuf’s mentor taught him 00:57:36 Asking questions vs having answers 01:03:05 How consulting firms differ from agencies 01:11:00 Coffee and creative career paths 01:19:03 Business case vs creative brief 01:21:50 Can agencies swim upstream? 01:38:36 First year in consulting 01:48:04 What working WITH clients looks like 02:00:32 What consulting and agencies have in common 02:16:23 What creative people do in consulting 02:25:59 Being authentic as your MOAT 02:34:08 Ways of working and how approaches differ 02:53:52 Curious creative consultant over conclusions 02:59:34 What is Yousuf focused on now 03:06:08 3001 Questions and final thoughts 03:09:52 Closing remarks