Emma Carter

A design leader with over 20 years of experience driving product design strategy, fostering cross-functional collaboration with product and engineering teams, and building high-performing global design teams that deliver impactful, customer-centric experiences. As the International Head of Design at PEXA, I partnered with executives to lift design maturity, embedded customer-centric practices and spearheaded a design system achieving 90% maturity in 2 years, delivered all design OKRs, and aligned design with business goals, saving 1000+ developer hours in 2 months. Through mentoring and creating the right team culture, I transformed a disengaged design team into a trusted, high-performing, collaborative function. Previously, I founded a successful UK design consultancy and spent a decade at Thoughtworks as a Principal Consultant where I coached designers at various stages of their careers, helped global clients scale design, shaped future-state product and platform experiences that balanced user needs, technology, and proved the business impact. I'm a visionary collaborator who keeps "one foot in the now and one in the future." I love turning quiet designers into confident advocates and ensuring design drives outcomes that matter.

• Rapid Design Maturity, Improved a clients design maturity growth from 2.5 to 4.5 within 7 months, establishing a scalable foundation for design excellence.
• Team Turnaround & Culture Shift, Transformed a disengaged design team into a harmonious and respected function; increased cross-team collaboration and stakeholder trust across a global team.
• Mentoring, Transformed a reserved senior designer into a lead designer who regularly spoke at conferences.
• Design System ROI, Secured funding for PEXA's first Design System. Built and led the team, achieved 90% system maturity in under 2 years, saving over 1,000 developer hours within 2 months of launch.
• Unlocked sevenfold growth potential, Led a major ecommerce brand's transition to a customer-obsessed approach by mapping journeys and leveraging data insights, facilitating a strategic shift that unlocked sevenfold growth potential.

• Canstar Innovation Excellence 2016
• Best Customer Experience - Suncorp BillSplitter 2015
• Winner of the UK, Chamber of Commerce Micro Business of the year 2010 & 2011
• Shortlisted for the UK, Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the year 2011

• Design maturity, the ticket to a first class, international customer experience
• Don't become a CX fail
• I believe women can have it all, but a supportive employer is necessary (Women's Agenda April, 3rd, 2017)
• Fixing Apple's Fingerprint login in 12 hours
• Why your company should adopt Innovation days
• Scribd, August, 2012
• Design Week, August 2012

• Women in Tech Conference (Sydney)
• Agile Orlando (USA)
• Agile Australia
• The Design Thinking Conference (Melbourne)
• LAST conference

Design vision & strategy, Executive stakeholder alignment, Human-centered design, Continuous customer feedback loops, Product visioning & service mapping, Accessibility & inclusive design, Agile delivery, Workshop facilitation, Cross-functional collaboration, Team transformation & culture building, Mentorship & leadership development, Design advocacy & visibility