Finding your authentic superpowers as a design leader

A talk by Vuokko Aro, VP of Design at Monzo

Vuokko will explore authenticity from both a personal perspective and as a design leader at a technology company: how she’s found a strong voice while building and scaling Monzo, and how that has helped the business — by embracing what makes her different and using it as a strength to build a beloved brand and product and diverse and high-performing creative teams, showing that you can be a confident and inspiring leader in different kinds of ways.

Vuokko will talk about consciously embracing her designer skillset and background, and not shying away from vocally being the different one around multidisciplinary leadership tables. About understanding how she can use design and creativity to bring valuable perspective. About how unique superpowers can add value to a multidisciplinary exec team, and how they can change the trajectory of a company. Inspiring big ambitious ideas and using the customer-centric design process as an approach to solve business problems, not just product ones. Not losing the fun and creative side of herself as she’s advanced in her career, and not losing sight of how design can be the positive and inspiring force that ambitiously drives a business forward.

Vuokko Aro

VP of Design at Monzo

Vuokko leads Design and Research at Monzo across all parts of the business, driving vision and execution across both Product and Brand. From Monzo’s prepaid era to today, her work has created beloved experiences across all customer touchpoints, influenced company direction, and helped build a profitable business with over 9 million customers.

Building on her startup experience in the US and Europe working on new and well established brands alike, Vuokko’s approach to developing Monzo’s award winning product is to start from first principles and create customer-centric work that elevates the whole industry. Vuokko holds two masters degrees - one in design and another in economics. She is building a small fashion brand as a side project.