Tara Hirebet is a seasoned product development and research leader with 18+ years experience working with big tech (Google), startups (Spotify) and super apps (GoJek, Swiggy, Rappi), creative agencies (RGA, TBWA), and government—delivering across the full E2E lifecycle. She builds things that don't exist yet— products, teams, offices and approaches —wherever the highest-stakes, messiest challenges live. Her strength lies in connecting systems thinking with user insight, then turning that into scalable solutions that unlock new market share, revive stuck products, or define what's next. Tara believes in seeing users and products as systems. Systems are much harder to abandon. Tara has led multinational teams to address complex challenges, from combating rideshare fraud to launching and scaling products in mass markets like Southeast Asia and Latin America. A recognized thought leader, Tara has spoken at global events such as TEDx Singapore and SXSW and has been featured in leading publications including The Economist Intelligence Unit and The Business Times. Tara is currently the Deputy Director of Research at GovTech and prior to that was engaged in fractional advisory roles in female health, neurodiversity, and Gen Z research. On the side, she is developing an Asia-America animation project with an ex-Pixar animator. Hear us cover: How Google maps and search are designed from systems Applying systems thinking for sustainability From hype cycle to preservation transformation Silicon Valley vs South-East Asia product building mindset Getting a Product Design Role in the USA

Sherizan Sheikh is a designer and AI builder. He leads design at botim (MENA’s fastest-growing app), builds solo projects like Nasma.ai, a spiritual AI habit tracker, Getglocal.ai, AI localisation tool and runs Detach.to for designers who love AI. When he’s not in Figma or Cursor, he’s rallying builders at JFBI, a vibecoding community in UAE. Hear us cover: Why vibe code is a massive opportunity for product professionals Deciding what to build Getting started with tools Launch and market to PMF Reiterating as a solo builder UX Career pathways

Jocelyn is a product and design leader with 14 years of experience in building strong teams and creating impact for consumers and businesses. She helps teams achieve strategic excellence across stages and particularly loves the 0-1 stage. She has been the CEO of a Series A breast cancer biotech (acquired in 2019), founded two organizations, including a design firm based in NYC, and has been part of the founding team of two other companies. Her expertise is her ability to translate customer insights into concepts and products. Some careers highlights include being a Senior Product and Design Director at a design care agency in the US, learning a team to design products from healthcare to eldercare, teaching classes at Stanford's design school (d.school), and getting her career started in finance, at the International Finance Corp., World Bank Group based in Nairobi, Kenya. Jocelyn believes that the how matters as much as the what when building products. She is based in Singapore with her family. Hear us cover: What’s an effective product discovery process? The Power of Iteration: Why “Fit” is a Moving Target Setting Up for Research Success in the Age of GenAI Best Practices for Iterative Product Discovery (including localisation) Case Studies: Success Stories of Agile Product Market Fit and AI-Accelerated Discovery

Assyaraf is currently a product design manager at Circles - a Telco SaaS company. With 10 years of experience in digital design, he is passionate about building great products as well as mentoring and growing design teams. Outside of work, Assyaraf enjoys the occasional travelling, discovering new music and supporting his favourite football team, Liverpool FC. Hear us cover: Lessons from transitioning from an individual contributor to a team manager Why choose a career and culture that demands excellence? Scaling design teams in the ASEAN region Reasons for working in a startup vs elsewhere

Jill Quek is a design lead at Automattic. She currently manages a team of product designers, who work remotely from all over the world. Together, they build e-commerce software at scale for more than 3 million stores on WordPress. Hear us cover: Making remote work productive as a leader Managing up and design team visibility while working remote Growing and evolving your career as an IC and Manager Preparing a portfolio and profile for an international company like Automattic

Sabina Fernandez is a UX Content Design Lead whose designs have unlocked millions-worth of spending with diverse-owned suppliers. How? Empathy. She puts herself in the shoes of others to make things better. After launching user experience (UX) content design in Meta's APAC headquarters, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she continued to design with words and information, making Enterprise software intuitive and user-friendly at Meta. Before that, she crafted content for Yahoo, Audi, and Conde Nast Traveller. Hear us cover:- Bridging the talent gap in content and product design- Why does it pay to be curious and courageous at work?- How is AI changing the work in content and product design?- Language and localisation competencies in global projects

Winnie Chong has spent 17 years bridging creativity and commerce in design, advertising, and interactive media across the APAC region. She’s worked with some of the biggest names, from VMLY&R, a global digital ad agency, to SPH, where she played a key role in transforming Singapore’s largest media company from traditional publishing to the digital economy. Today, she leads User Experience at Bank of New York and is based in Singapore. Winnie’s passion is understanding what people truly want, whether it’s clients, customers or users, and making sure the experiences she designs are not only functional but also loved. She believes great design starts with listening—even when it means unlearning what you thought you knew. It’s about sparking curiosity, igniting imagination, and bringing a little wonder into people’s lives. Hear us cover: Barriers to adopting new technologies Investor and evangelism mindset for designers The potential of blockchain and its associated projects Why curiosity has a high correlation to one's career trajectory?

Jonathan Yap is a design leader and community advocate exploring the evolving identity of design in Southeast Asia. Through Design Pay Asia, he dives beyond surface-level salary data to uncover deeper insights about career growth, education pathways, and the changing value of design in the region. With 15 years of experience across WeWork and Visa, and currently leading design standards at a Singapore bank, Jonathan brings a unique perspective on how design roles are transforming alongside technological advancement. His work combines quantitative insights with nuanced understanding of cultural and educational shifts in the design industry. As someone deeply invested in nurturing future design talent, he regularly speaks about the intersection of design education, industry needs, and regional identity in Southeast Asia's growing tech ecosystem. Hear us cover: Preview of Design Pay 2025 Report Salaries between men and women Where are the UX hotspots in South-East Asia? How design education is shifting and what that means for future talents The perception vs reality of design value in our region Continuous learning as a product and design talent

With over a decade in design, Yin has done everything from print and branding to working with startups, leading event creatives, and managing an indie band’s branding. After 5 years in consulting, where she worked across different industries and regions, she now lead the design and product teams at Naluri, pulling all that experience together to create impactful digital products.   Hear us cover: Building a regional product with global ambitions from Malaysia Evolving Naluri's Brand and Design Language Designing around legacy systems Insights building and designing for HealthTech Consulting at McKinsey vs working In-house

Kicking off his career through hackathons, Isaac Lee quickly transitioned from payments into wealthtech. With a passion for solving problems at scale, he's revamped wealthtech apps, overhauled customer service workflows, and automated everything from onboarding to exclusive investor products. Now, he’s discovering just how far technology can elevate wealth management as a senior product manager at Endowus.   Hear us cover: Solving the issue of both online and offline experience in wealth management Cultural adaptation versus thought leadership, GTM for different markets Product Innovation at a growth stage company Building a career in FinTech

Shery is a design strategist with a flair for unconventional thinking and excels at tackling complex problems in creative ways. After nearly a decade in New Zealand, this Singaporean returnee has built a solid track record across Aviation, Education, Digital Consulting, FinTech, and more. As a cheeseboard layout expert, amateur wine-enthusiast and lazy food lover, she set up the Innovation Design Club as a support group for wayward designers like herself. Now part of the care Innovation team at SC Ventures, she leverages her talent for connecting the dots to drive ecosystem considerate thinking and achieve meaningful growth.   A strong believer in outcome-driven collaboration, Shery is passionate about reinforcing future-proof strategies through people-first approaches. With deep experience in service and product design, she’s led impactful initiatives in digital transformation, customer experience, and partnerships across diverse industries.   Hear us cover: - Skillsets of an Innovation Designer (or Consultant) - Building a community like Innovation Design Club - Consulting vs In-house Design Team - Innovation theatre in enterprises - Sustainability practices

Adela is Director of Product Design and User Insights teams at Zalora, working across various SEA markets. She has been at the forefront of designing user friendly and intentional products, services and experiences. She has been both on client side and consultancy side having worked across continents in Americas, Europe and now in Asia.   Hear us cover:- Service Design in Europe vs Asia- Skillsets of a Service Designer- Projects at Zalora and more that goes beyond UX design- Consulting vs In-house Design Team  

Norman is a senior design manager based in Singapore. At Grab, he drives strategy, design, culture, and growth across the organization with a focus on elevating user experiences across support, comms, safety, and family experiences for 600+ million people across Southeast Asia. He’s deeply fascinated by how businesses, communities, and ecosystems are built, broken, and evolved and why we make the choices we do. Outside of work, he shares his insights as a writer, moderator, and speaker. He’s been nominated as a young gun by Antalis 10-20-30, a judge for Singapore Good Design and has been featured in Business Times, Singapore Economic Development, The Straits Times, art4d, MTV Asia, The Breakfast Show, and Juice magazine.   Hear us cover: - Managing and partnering up in a corporate environment - Building a diverse in-house design team that thrives - Engaging others on the possibilities and potential of design - Building sustainable talent practices with new capabilities and approaches - How do you push yourself to be better as a design leader?

Izwan Ismail is a digital and design leader with over a decade of experience that encompasses startups, scaleups, and corporations. He has advised a government on building startup ecosystems and built the nation’s digital and design capability.

Eyad's a venture bricklayer with his recent experience primarily being in the digital sector for energy, renewables, commerce, media and fintech, from early-stage strategy and product concept development to securing resources required to set-up and operationalize new products and services. He tends to surf the sweet spot between product management, business development and technology. He is interested in positive and sustainable change and is energized and enthused by great design and great experiences. Today, he supports the commercialisation aspiration of a large, diversified renewable energy firm in Malaysia.   He scored top in the 2020 Oxford Fintech Programme with Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. In 2019 he was invited to join the Advisory Council of Gerson Lehrman Group for Technology, Media and Telecommunications. In 2014 he had an award-winning technical paper published twice (in Malaysia and Australia). He's a Certified Innovation Practitioner and Train The Trainer. He holds a Design Thinking Facilitation certificate from the Copenhagen Institute for Interactive Design. Eyad recently became an accredited Angel Investor. He's based in Kuala Lumpur with his son.   Join us to hear us cover:- The parallels of evangelising something abstract like innovation or design in an enterprise- What are the models of innovation at an enterprise?- Communicating value and impact of a mid to long term project- Practical skills Eyad had to acquire to be an innovation or venture leader- Tips to engage senior management and stakeholders

Meet Johnny, a seasoned designer with over two decades of experience spanning various industries, including comics, automobiles, mobile apps, and secondhand goods. He is driven by the belief that exceptional design should seamlessly blend into our lives, offering intuitive experiences that feel like second nature. Johnny's mission is to simplify our increasingly complex world through the creation of digital interfaces that are not only visually appealing but also user-friendly, making information readily accessible. With a wealth of expertise in product design and a track record of shaping UI/UX strategies for tech companies in Malaysia, Johnny is deeply passionate about all facets of design. And, by the way, he's also an avid coffee enthusiast!   Hear us cover: - Johnny's UX career working for startups like Carsome and Mudah.my (part of Carousell Group) and with larger organisations - What leaders need to know about the Malaysia tech ecosystem concerning product talent - Johnny's career conversion journey from Art Director to UX Designer - Why build a community of design leaders through an event like Design Leadership Kuala Lumpur?

With over 13 years of experience spanning digital agencies, e-commerce (11street - a joint venture between SK Planet and Celcom Axiata), and telecommunications (Digi in Malaysia and Smartfren in Indonesia), Faidzal strongly advocates for a research-first approach. He emphasises the importance of data-driven decisions and continuous design experimentation. Currently, Faidzal is the UX Design Lead for Global Commerce at LINE in Bangkok, Thailand. He focuses primarily on building and strengthening the 3Ps:- People: Uplifting the team's research-driven mindset and building a data-driven culture.- Product: Strategising a UX approach that fits the company's direction.- Practice: Setting up a core framework for UX design practices. Join us to hear us cover:- Working overseas in Indonesia and Thailand as a Malaysian- Thinking deeper about user experience and its subconscious impact- Negotiating salaries and getting jobs overseas as a UXer

Ruby has spent her career making organisations more customer-centric. In Singapore, her experience includes working as a Lead UX Researcher at Grab and Strategic Designer at Boston Consulting Group.Previously she worked as a management consultant at Nous Group in Australia. Ruby's career has focused on using Human Centred Design techniques in diverse contexts across the public, private and non-profit sectors to provide advice on product and service design, strategy and policy.Ruby has spoken at multiple international conferences and regularly shares design thought leadership on LinkedIn.Join us to hear us cover:- How do we quantify the business impact of UX design or research- The role of a strategic designer- What most organisations get wrong in digital strategy and design strategy

Daryl is a Digital Product Designer with over a decade of experience working in various agencies, start-ups, and SMEs. He is creatively curious, and enjoys crafting meaningful experiences by leveraging on the latest data, processes, and technology.In his previous roles and experiences, he led successful teams in delivering high-value projects, implemented processes and systems while collaborating across various business, research, product and engineering units locally and internationally to drive product and service to successful delivery.His motivations are to continue to discover, learn and innovate through the understanding and application of new concepts and methodologies to endeavours both personally and professionally. He enjoys engaging with people from all backgroundsJoin us to hear us cover:- How does working for an agency or startup feels like as a UX-er- Coaching junior UX colleagues at work- Managing burnout and stress in between change and projects

Chenmu Wu graduated from university with a degree in Architecture and proceeded to work at Shopee for four years as a UIUX designer. In 2019, he played a pivotal role in initiating the migration of the design team from Sketch to Figma. This transition sparked his enthusiasm for Figma, leading him to embark on developing Figma plugins as side projects. During his time at Shopee, Chenmu served as the primary contributor and manager of the Shopee Design System. Additionally, he took charge of the UIUX design for Bill payments and the Shopee international platform. In his current position as the Lead UI/UX Designer at Daraz - Alibaba, Chenmu holds the responsibility of overseeing a team of five designers from both Pakistan and Singapore. They are dedicated to driving innovation and fostering user-centric design solutions within the organization.Join us to hear us cover:- How and why Chenmu’s Figma plug-in the generates wireframes using ChatGPT went viral- How can progressive designers work with AI- Implication of AI in the product development process