Ana Sofia Gonzalez
Senior Designer, Microsoft
Better Together
18 mins
Design Leadership & Influence
Everyone
About The Speaker
Ana Sofia is a Senior Designer at Microsoft. She delights in democratizing innovative solutions. With over 8 years of experience in the tech industry, she includes diverse perspectives into her designs. She knows that the adoption of innovations might be difficult. By sharing her insights on Mixed Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Innovative Work Cultures, she helps others adopt innovation and retain users for over 20-year-old products.
Ana Sofia is also an advocate for D&I initiatives by being a chapter leader at Microsoft Latinx Employee resource group, creating allyships for minorities, and mentoring. When she is not working or volunteering, you can find her dancing and exploring unknown lands.
Better Together
Design leadership can be truly seen when culture is transformed. To transform culture you have to go to the root of the problem: inclusion and diversity.
Inclusivity comes from including diverse perspectives in the product decisions promoting innovation. To really bring inclusion to others’ points of view you have to generate trust and allyships not only in your discipline but also with engineering, research, and product managers. I will go over my experience in transforming culture from the product team to the Cloud and AI Microsoft organization.
Key Takeaways
1
Be curious: have growth mindset.
2
Create trust and allyship: show appreciation and vulnerability.
3
Lead by example: put the teams needs before your own.
