Design Thinking 101

Welcome to the Design Thinking 101 podcast! I’m Dawan Stanford, your host. Today I’ll be interviewing Aleksandra Melnikova and talking about her position as Head of Experience Design at Publicis•Poke in London, England. In this episode, we talk about humble design leadership and how design is evolving to better serve our clients and the world. Aleksandra tells us about how her art, sculpture, and drawing training inform her work as a designer and leader. Today, we explore Aleksandra’s work and her team at Publicis•Poke in London, design agency evolution, how she leads an experience design team with a wide array of talents, and how she inspires by mentoring people outside work.  Aleksandra likes to start from a blank sheet of paper and accepting that she and her team have a great deal to learn from and with clients. She fosters the culture of not being afraid to ask questions and being blunt about the information and what is going right and wrong. She encourages her team to spend 80% of their time on question