Andrew began working in tech when internet modems operated at 11kb per second and made that funny noise while dialing up. Most recently he has been working in stealth mode on a disruptive startup that aims to safely give every human being on earth their own artificially intelligent super powers – Simby.

Prior to Simby, Andrew was leading a UX design team at Google in Mountain View California, focussing on deep tech and the products of the future. He was responsible for envisioning, prototyping, and building product solutions that affect the daily lives of billions of human beings. He is a TEDx speaker and has worked as a technology advisor in customer experience for a number of high profile multinational organisations in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Berlin and Sydney. With a wealth of real world experience, Andrew loves to help fellow UX designers to reach their personal or project related goals while being able to remain true to themselves, and the needs of their customers.

Elizabeth (Liz) is a versatile, strategic and pragmatic UX professional with 20+ years experience in designing, developing and transforming market-leading digital products and customer experiences for B2C, B2B and B2B2C businesses in both start-ups and enterprise settings. She has held many Head of UX roles in Financial Services, Telecommunications, Media, and Health and Wellness industries, working on award winning products and helping these companies build their design teams and capabilities.

Liz is passionate about creating experiences that deliver WIN-WIN for business and customer, by combining UX with agile, lean-startup and Human-Centred-Design (HCD) approaches. She enjoys working on the full customer experience life cycle from ideation, strategy & vision through to development, execution and delivery. She also loves coaching individuals and teams towards high performance, and supporting them to achieve the best versions of themselves.

Matt started his journey in design 22 years ago, revelled during the Flash Era, embraced the swing to accessibility and HTML & CSS, shiny web 2.0, HTML5, now the swing to user centric design and the rise of mobile and the plethora of digital devices and interfaces that now inhabit our lives.

More recently, Matt has been broadening his skills across a range of mediums & managing teams for media company Newscorp and currently running the user experience & design team at Fetch TV, Managing a 12 strong UX & Design team, based in Sydney and Kuala Lumpur covering a range of disciplines from Visual design, UI Design to UX Design and Research. Planning, designing and delivering the next generation of user interface for Fetch’s flagship TV Experience to the living rooms of over 1/2 million Australians.

Since owning his own Design Agency some years ago, Matt took a big interest in helping out and mentoring up and coming designers, he assisted in the creation and teaching of a web design course at Shillington College at the Sydney & Melbourne campuses and has given the occasional lecture at UTS in Sydney.

Mike has been leading UX, design and product teams for over 20 years. Starting in the madness of the dot com bubble, Mike’s career has taken him from fast-growing startups to multinational corporations in Sydney, London and Tokyo and on to some of the biggest tech brands in Australia.

Mike is currently Head of UX & Design at Gumtree and a member of the global eBay Classifieds Design Leaders Group. Prior to Gumtree, Mike was Head of Experience Design at Hipages, Australia’s largest two-sided marketplace for home services. Before that, Mike led design and product management for mobile innovation on the CommBank app (Australia’s #1 finance app) and CommBank’s award-winning Youth app.

Driven by the belief that the best customer experiences are made by passionate, empowered designers, Mike is committed to coaching individuals to success and guiding organisations to new levels of design maturity.

Ken has over 17 years experience in UX design, most of which has focused on mobile strategy and design. As Head of UX at Fairfax Media, Ken received multiple Australian Mobile awards for his user centred, mobile led contribution to iconic Australian brands such as the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), Domain, Good Food Guide and Realestate.com.au. Throughout his tenure, Ken’s leadership saw Fairfax double its UX capability and he was instrumental in the launch of key flagship products including the Domain mobile app, which many of us use every day.

Ken has a passion for tackling complex design challenges and turning these into experiences that feel second nature to consumers and it’s this drive that gets him out of bed every morning. This project is a unique opportunity to be mentored by one of Australia’s leading UX designers and we’re so excited to welcome Ken to the Harness Projects mentor team.

Jason is a strategic consultant who excels in helping organisations navigate disruption and change by pulling together collaborative teams in an efficient and consistent way. He has over 20 years experience in technology and design. He has a deep understanding of the digital interactions he designs as well as the holistic experience of the customer.

Jason has taught students and teams to design and build websites, create qualitative/quantitative research and assets, develop skills in user, customer and service design. He is always excited to share his knowledge and experience to those wanting to grow in design.

From the age of 18, Lara knew Internet and Digital Platforms were her passion. She started her career as a web designer and developer. Witnessing the digital landscape evolving and the importance of HCI coming into play, Lara made her move towards Human-Centred Design and Interaction Design. For almost two decades, she has been applying human-centered research and design thinking into developing user interfaces and digital products across different industries.

She is currently the Head of UX at Booktopia, leading the research, design and delivery of award winning web and mobile experiences, while she enjoys sharing her knowledge by teaching, mentoring and consulting.

Christian brings to his students 19 years of experience across the entire UX lifecycle – from opportunity research to the definition, validation and release of new apps and websites. He collaborated at strategic and executional levels with Lexus, CBA, Westpac, Woolworths, Google, Menulog, Network 10, the ABC and the NSW Department of Transport & Education to deliver impactful solutions that advance target users’ lives.

He mentors students on making user experience design actionable by helping them to reflect on their project work, by providing insight into practical challenges and by broadening perspective.

Sam has 10-years experience working with various tier-one enterprise companies in building meaningful digital experiences. Sam specialises in establishing a fast-paced UX/UI design process that is both experimentation and validation heavy. Testing hypotheses early and regularly, enables complex, data-driven solutions to be both engaging and usable.

Vast knowledge across Service Design, Agile and strategic thinking has seen Sam work for some of the most iconic, data-driven enterprises in Australia, including – Optus, Westpac, ASX, Macquarie Bank, Telstra and Cisco.

Lisa is a UX Design Strategist specializing in Agile research & team building. She has 25 years of agency & client-side experience, including leadership roles at CommBank, Atlassian, eBay, Plantronics, and PC World. She has worked in Silicon Valley for more than half her career but she still calls Australia home, and has managed to retain her Aussie accent!

Lisa is passionate about helping others hone their UX skills in personally relevant and practical ways. In 2015 she was awarded a Governor commendation for leading a Design Thinking workshop with Social Ventures Australia & PWC for over 70 school principals.

On this project, Lisa will help each student gain a working knowledge of the critical facets of UX design & research, with special emphasis on “problem framing,” “empathetic interviewing,” and “quantifying the user experience” – to achieve customer-centred results with meaningful impact.

Andrew has been designing for over 18 years – starting out as a graphic designer before moving across into digital. He’s worked on projects for household names for both agency-side and client-side.

Moving up the design ladder, Andrew now focuses his energies on user experience as the UX Manager for Vodafone Australia. Andrew relishes a challenge and with solid experience leading UX teams on complex, large scale projects he’s seen his fair share of action. Andrew is a passionate customer advocate and derives his own personal satisfaction from creating experiences that make customer’s lives easier whilst adding value to the products he works on.

Carrie Webster has worked in the field of user experience for over 19 years, having worked in start-ups through to specialising in complex B2B environments. With strong stakeholder and team management experience, she has worked for organisations including Optus, NBN, Equifax and Deloitte Digital, as well as working as an instructor and mentoring in the UX field.

Her passion lies in enabling businesses to create compelling stories for their products and services and using her experience to help others sharpen their own User Experience design skills to do the same. Carrie holds a Masters of Information Architecture, a Bachelor of Visual Arts, and she also has a background in web design and development, and she spends her “spare time” on creative projects.

Rebecca has a diverse portfolio of skills across strategy, marketing, experience design, and digital product development built over a rich career journey of nearly 20 years. She has headed up digital teams in corporates, health organisations, not-for-profits and tech start-ups.

Always curious and a passionate continuous learner, Rebecca thrives in environments where she can enable and empower others to be their best. Collaborative practice is at the heart of her operating style with Rebecca loving the challenges of bringing together teams of diverse talents with a clear shared objectives to work on transformative projects.

For Rebecca, the arena of digital marketing unites her love for user experience, creative, strategy and engagement in a space that continues to evolve rapidly.

Agility, adaptability and curiosity are both mindsets and values that guide her practice.

Rebecca is working on a range of projects including Heading up Digital and Marketing at Leadership Victoria working on the implementation of new brand, web and marketing stack.

Nell has over 15 years’ marketing experience in listed and entrepreneurial environments spanning the UK, Europe and Asia Pacific regions. Originally from England, Nell has lived in Australia since 2009 where she held leadership roles at Yahoo7 and then at LinkedIn as Head of Marketing and Head of the Employer Brand and Media.

Nell has a passion for building marketing solutions that fit the most challenging client brief and as a team leader, combines this with building others’ skills at digital and content marketing. Nell is a public speaker at industry events most recently at the Digital Innovation Summit and Mumbrella360. Nell is a judge for the industry awards – B&T, Mumbrella & Women in Media. Nell continues her own learning, studying Psychology with Monash University which allows her to bring a deep understanding of the science of human behaviour to marketing.

On this project, Nell will facilitate the learning of each student in the core areas of digital marketing; understanding an audience, crafting a digital content strategy, defining channels and measuring impact.

Yummii thrives on creating products and services that delight customers.

She is deeply passionate about understanding what motivates others, their biggest fears, their deepest desires, and what is important to them. Equipped with amazing insights and exciting opportunity area’s to delight their lives, Yummii sets out to design products and services that customer’s didn’t know they wanted.

Yummii believes that everyone has the power within them to make the world a better place – and that, as designers, we are accountable for crafting experiences that make heart’s sing.