Join our Facebook discussion group →
Episode #27: Maria Giudice
It is our pleasure to present to you Maria Giudice, Former VP, Experience Design at Autodesk.
Maria founded and led a design studio named ‘Hot Studio’ for over 15 years, which was then acquired by Facebook, where she was a Director of product Design.
Later on she took another big leap, left facebook to take on the role of VP Creative at Autodesk, where she focused on building a customer-centric company and leading a design team of ‘change agents’.
Recently, Maria left Autodesk and is now taking her time to contemplate her next career move.
Maria joined Autodesk in times where the company was undergoing a massive transformation. Moving from old software, as a heavy tech company to be an experienced-driven company. They needed a change agent to bring and elevate the awareness and strength of design focusing on connecting experiences, and Maria was the one to do so.
Maria also co-wrote a book, called ‘Rise of the DEO‘, which is about leaders who understand the transformative power of design, they are change agents and these leaders called DEOs—Design Executive Officers—and they are our new heroes.
In this episode, Maria shared with us what makes creative DEO’s the change agents of the future, and how we can learn from that and empower others to lead this cultural change.
This is the second episode of the third season of the Hacking UI podcast, ‘Scaling a Career’.
In this season we have 10 amazing guests for you, who are leaders and influencers from a variety of different backgrounds. Design managers, development leaders, entrepreneurs and product geniuses that we admire.
Please support our amazing sponsors
This episode is brought to you by Invision, an amazing product design platform that you probably already know about.
The education team over at Invision created a magnificent source of quality learning material for product designers. On DesignBetter.Co you’ll find interviews with dozens of leading designers from companies like Google, Airbnb, Netflix, Facebook, Slack and more.
Discover the design practices that they use that will help you to transform your organization and create better products. Also, you can subscribe to their amazing podcast, read one the four free books they published and put together for you and also, be sure to check out their one of a kind workshops for designers.
Freshbooks is the perfect accounting software for freelance designers and developers or creative entrepreneurs with a small business. They have some really powerful features like integration with stripe, expense tracking and a customer support team who actually works with you to find the perfect solution. If you’re looking to get some understanding of your business and keep track of things without wasting hours of your time, then this is exactly what you need.
If you’d like to become a sponsor of the Hacking UI podcast, contact us.
Links from the show
- Maria’s Twitter (@mgiudice)
- Maria’s Tedx Talk, The Rise of the DEO
- Maria Giudice’s Book, Rise of the DEO
- Documentary on Linkedin, Design Leadership in Business
Recommendations for Books
- Daniel H. Pink – Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates us
- Ken Robinson – How Education Kills Creativity
- Tim Brown – Change By Design
- Chip Heath & Dan Heath – Switch: How To Change Things When It’s Hard
- David Kelly – Creative Confidence
I Love this podcast – now what?
Show your love #1 – Talk: Talk about it with friends and get the word out! We started this podcast in order to learn and would love to see others learn from it too.
Show your love #2 – Leave a review: Review us on iTunes and tell us which guest you’d like us to bring on the show next. When you review us it lets us know that you like the show and that we should keep doing it. Check out the following image, which describes exactly how to leave a review in one minute.
Show your love #3 – Share: Share this page on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever you can 🙂
Key points from this episode:
- Learn all about how Maria developed from running her own company (which was acquired by facebook), to leading a ‘change agents’ design team at Autodesk. [00:06:41]
- Learn how do the design team at Autodesk connect experiences, unionize and make the company the most customer-centric company in the world. [00:07:25]
- Learn how the team define quality and ship quality, and how they are focusing on fluid & intuitive experiences to their products. [00:11:22]
- Maria shares on how the DEO idea was sparked, and the idea that designers are ‘change agents’. [00:13:06]
- Learn all about how different are the DEO’s from the CEO’s, and how designers thrive in risks and chaos. [00:15:40]
- Find out what GSD means, and how designers are great at making it happen and deliver. [00:17:50]
- Learn how the company design to lead cultural change, and helping their customers to unlock their creativity throughout their tools. [00:19:44]
- Get tips! For people who want to lead a cultural change. [00:21:35]
- Find out the secrets of a DEO, to mentor and empower others on achieving their goals. [00:26:15]
- Maria shares about fighting harder as a woman and personal setbacks of minorities in the industry. [00:28:04]
- Learn how to balance that guilt feeling with being a parent and managing a career, and how you can empower your kids. [00:31:00]
- Maria shares on how she made her successful personal branding, and tips for you to do so too. [00:38:20]
- Learn how much you should be investing for your personal brand. [00:41:05]
- Maria shares about the process of ‘The Rise of the DEO’, and how it turned from a ted talk into a written book. [00:46:00]
- Maria’s recommendations for books (also check the show notes). [00:49:00]
- Maria is a master of to do lists. Learn quick tactics on how to get shit done and deliver. [00:50:35]
About The Hacking UI Podcast
The Hacking UI podcast is hosted by Sagi Shrieber and David Tintner, a designer and developer who are also both entrepreneurs, bloggers, productivity/time-hacking maniacs, and all around tech geeks.
We are thrilled to launch the third season of the Hacking UI podcast, where we hack our way through product design, development, and creative entrepreneurship.
Our first season, was called ‘Scaling a Design Team’, the Second season was called ‘Scaling a Side Project’ and we’ve decided to call this season – ‘Scaling a Career’.
In this season we have 10 amazing guests for you, who are leaders and influencers from a variety of different backgrounds.
We have design managers, development leaders, entrepreneurs and product geniuses.
