Date
TBC
Duration
40 min
Location
TBC
Note: This session is included in the conference ticket, but specific program has not been finalised.
How do you grow from designing screens to designing organisations? In this candid and practical talk, Phil will reflect on two decades of twists, pivots, and lessons learned on the journey from UX practitioner to design leader. From the early days of academia and consulting to running his own agency and leading large design teams at Lloyds Banking Group, Phil’s “squiggly career” has been anything but linear.
He’ll share the unfiltered realities of leadership — the mistakes (like hiring the wrong people), the trade-offs (between craft and commercial impact), and the quiet wins that come from seeing others grow beyond you. You’ll learn how to balance user-centred design with business realities, how to build trust and credibility at scale, and why being “good with numbers” might be one of your most powerful design tools.
Whether you’re a designer wondering if leadership is for you, or already managing a team and looking to level up, this talk will help you connect the dots between doing great design and enabling great designers.
You’ll leave with:
– 3 questions to help you decide if leadership is your next step
– 3 actions you can take tomorrow to start building your leadership muscles
– Real stories from the trenches — not theory, but lessons learned the hard way
Philip Bonhard
Head of Experience Design
Lloyds Banking Group
Phil is the Head of Experience Design for Homes and Mortgages at Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s biggest home purchase lender. He’s passionate about designing products and services that make people’s lives better and believes building stuff is more important than describing it. Prior to joining Lloyds, he headed up experience design for the Economic Crime Prevention Platform, worked in academia and at big consulting firms, and ran his own design agency.
