EP57 with Catherine Nygaard, Design Director wat WhatsApp and former Director at Airbnb and Spotify. With Catherine, we explore how to grow design teams, foster creativity in your team, and what she has learned working with some of the world’s best product teams in the world. We also learn her personal approach towards design and what she has learned managing design teams and working in transformative business environments: for example her time at Airbnb during the times of COVID. During the episode we explore: How to design for billion+ users. How to drive productivity in your team. How to empower users. The importance to know the ‘why’ of your innovation. What makes your product stand out. Why culture is key for foster creativity. Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Catherine! —— The Guest Catherine Nygaard has been making well-designed and meaningful products, services, connected systems and environments for over a decade. She is the Design Director at WhatsApp in London. Before that she was Experience Design Director at Airbnb in San Francisco and Head of Product Design + Research at THE NET-A-PORTER GROUP in London. In addition to that she was also Design Director at Spotify and Method where she worked with many design studios around the world. Her experience spans retail for digital and physical environments in fashion, connected home, gaming and video streaming for cross-platform/devices environments. She gained experience in both designing and leading and growing design teams.