Emerging Design Leaders Workshop
Design leadership today means holding two truths at once: teams need stability and clarity, while the work itself demands constant reinvention. AI is reshaping how we design and make decisions. Climate change is redefining the resources we rely on. Shifts in social and economic systems influence what we create and how we work together.
Stepping into leadership amid so much change is not easy. It asks emerging leaders to redefine the role of design while balancing uncertainty with curiosity and leading with care even when the path ahead is unclear.
This 2-part workshop day offers space to pause and reflect on what leadership in design can look like in this moment of uncertainty. Through two hands-on sessions led by experienced design leaders, we will explore ways to lead teams with care, refine our role in the shifting landscape, and create meaningful impact through design.
The set-up:
One day, two workshops. Each session runs for two hours in small groups of 15–20 participants. The workshops build on each other, focusing not only on learning from the facilitators but also from one another through shared experience and conversation.
Breaks, snacks, and time to connect are woven throughout the day, with a relaxed networking session to close.
The aim is simple: to offer practical tools, shared insight, and a supportive community to accompany you on your leadership journey.
Workshop details:
Lead with clarity, not chaos.
You’ve made the leap into leadership. Now it’s time to build what makes great design possible.
Host: Therese Sharp, UX Lead Manager @ The Boots Group UK
The role of a design leader isn’t just to deliver work - it’s to build the conditions where great work can happen consistently, sustainably, and joyfully. That means creating clarity, protecting creativity, and shaping the systems your team works inside.
In this interactive workshop, Therese Sharp will help you move from firefighting to framework-building.
You’ll walk away with:
Clear next steps to strengthen your team’s creative environment
A personal leadership profile you can grow into, not out of
Tools to help you design rituals, workflows, and feedback that stick
If your role feels like a never-ending tension between delivery, care, and scale, you’re not alone. This workshop gives you the tools, language, and space to lead well in that tension.
DesignShifters: New design roles for a shifting world
In a world that no longer needs more things, what is the role of design leaders?
Host: Ida Persson, Freelance Designer/Creative Director, ex-Design Lead @ IDEO
As we navigate an era of shifting economies, climate collapse, and AI technologies, emerging design leaders face a critical question: what is our role in a world already full of things? How can we step into leadership, guide teams, and shape systems while imagining something fundamentally different?
About the workshop
This co-creation session invites design leaders to explore and step into new roles that move beyond outputs, shaping relationships, services, and systems that foster resilience, equity, and regeneration. Rather than producing more products, we will examine how design leadership can influence larger systems and create lasting impact.
Together, we will:
Discover new archetypes of design leadership for a post-consumption world
Reimagine how design leaders can respond to interconnected global crises, from climate and housing to justice and well-being
Define how to shift our postures, practices, and processes to lead mindfully and contribute to regenerative futures
By the end of the session, participants will leave with a clearer sense of their systemic role as design leaders, practical frameworks and tools to step confidently into leadership, and a shared vision of moving from optimizing consumption to nurturing transitions that benefit people, communities, and the planet.
About the Organizer
Employed.world is a social enterprise and community of 100+ emerging UX Product leaders, mentors, coaches which aims at building support system for job seekers in Berlin/Germany. Over the past 2 years the community has hosted 80+ in person events in Berlin to create safe space for over 3500+ job seekers to reduce their blindspots.