Taking your career from good to great is no easy task. We’re aiming to create a safe and non-judgemental space for designers, researchers and design managers to discuss the challenges that affect their professional growth.

Join RETHINK for a conversation with design and research leaders from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Google, Coursera, Nextdoor & Coinbase to learn strategies on how to navigate career challenges, and develop skills, and processes that help you grow to the next level.

Some of the topics we'll discuss:

• Leaders answer your questions around the chalenges you're facing
• How to be a more articulate and confident communicator
• Gaining confidence to grow into leadership roles and overcoming the imposter syndrome
• The importance of mentorship in career growth and how to find mentors that can help you along the way?
• Understand how to identify blind spots and areas of improvement and grow in my career
• How to approach your career with intention and prioritize next steps more thoughtfully
• How do you navigate through the chaos of changes while continuously learning and improving?

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About the Speakers

Emily Luke | UX Research Manager @ Google

Emily has been building high quality experiences for human beings for over 10 years - first, consulting with companies like Gap and Barnes & Noble, then leading a Research + Design team at ThoughtWorks Products, then leading research efforts for the Payments team at Airbnb - and now, leading a team of UX Researchers on the Search team at Google.

Chetana Deorah | Director of Design @ Coursera

Chetana is Director of Product Design at Coursera bringing the best of online learning to the world! As a product design leader, she empowers teams with a values-driven, customer-centric approach that elevates business goals.

She has worked at Netflix, Scribd, Pentagram, Pivotal Labs and Yahoo spanning a career over 12 years in product innovation and global growth.

Chetana also serves on the Board of Inneract Project, a non-profit based in SF that brings design education to black & brown youth. As a certified Hatha Yoga teacher and practitioner, she believes in yoga's enduring ability to help us live and lead a balanced life

Neek Zanfack | Product Designer @Nextdoor

Neek is a product designer who is passionate about solving human and business problems through design. He works on the monetization team at Nextdoor, where he leads design on enterprise self-serve products. He also mentors young black designers and is a founding member of BlacksWhoDesign, a directory dedicated to increasing the visibility of Black designers in tech.

Before Nextdoor, Neek designed products for the growth team at Handshake. He was also a Kleiner Perkins Design fellow.

Stan Rapp | Design Manager @Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Stan Rapp is a digital product designer from Ukraine who currently resides in Oakland, CA. Currently, he supports the design team at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as a product design manager.

Stan has mentored designers at First Round Capital Fast Track, RETHINK, and Out Of Office Hours. Additionally, his work was recognized at TechCrunch Disrupt and San Francisco Design Week Awards.

Yitong Zhang | Staff Product Designer @ Coinbase

Yitong Zhang is a Staff Product Designer at Coinbase, where he works on design systems. He’s also the maker of Autoflow, a popular Figma plugin that makes drawing flows super fast.

Julie Stanescu | Founder RETHINK

Julie is the founder of RETHINK and a big advocate of solving people problems using human centered design and strategic thinking. She's currently building design leadership community and exploring new attitudes towards designing for better education and learning experiences for UX design professionals.

Julie is originally from Romania and she lived and worked on three different continents in Eastern Europe, Canada and USA which taught her the importance of diversity in cultures and perspectives, how to thrive in the unknown, take risks and deal with uncertainty.

Julie has over 13 years of professional experience supporting business strategy and product design needs for Fortune 500 Companies as well as mid-sized startups bringing order from chaos, establishing systems and processes while upholding standards of high-quality.