Klaus Kaasgaard
VP, User Experience Design
Intuit
Klaus Kaasgaard is VP of Experience Design of Intuit’s Small Business Group. He has 20 years experience in user experience and product management in companies including Telstra, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Prior to joining Intuit in 2012, Kaasgaard served as CEO of Fundii, an online and mobile coupon marketing start-up. He holds a PhD in information science and also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Aalborg where he champions entrepreneurship and design thinking in his native country, Denmark. Kaasgard lives in Redwood City, CA with his wife and two daughters.
Design-Driven Innovation: The Case of Harmony
All designers, engineers and product managers want to design awesome, innovative product experiences. But what does that really mean? And is there an established method for complex organizations to achieve that goal and to use design thinking and design methods to drive innovation? In his talk, Klaus Kaasgaard will reveal Intuit’s “secret sauce” as it continues in its fourth decade to be one of the most innovative tech companies and give a recent example of how design drove the re-imagination of the new QuickBooks Online (code name Project “Harmony”), referred to as “the most visionary change out of Intuit.”
The Future of Design Leadership
Panelist
Clearly we are in a new frontier. Design is so relevant to the core of every business, that there are now new converging interests in design leadership. What is the future of design leadership? By the end of this conference, we will be closer to finding out.
This last session is not a concluding summary of the conference, rather, it’s a fresh perspective as an open dialog with some of the world’s most advanced design leaders including: Eric Quint, 3M; Klaus Kaasgard, Intuit; Sean Carney, Philips; Carole Bilson, IDSA, DMI; Mauro Porcini, PepsiCo; Nasahn Sheppard, REI; Ernesto Quinteros, J&J; and Steve Kaneko, FIDSA, Microsoft.
The panel, led by Thomas Lockwood, will explore alternative futures and address some of the most curious and challenging questions. Who really leads design—designers or business people? As a design leader, what is your greatest challenge? Do design leaders need business degrees, and vice versa? Is design leadership fun? What’s the future for designers in corporate, consultancy and independents? What’s the career path for an industrial designer that wants to stick with designing, or shift into leading?
Who leads experience design—ID, UX or customer service? Do industrial designers need to dive into holistic user experience design? Is design becoming a brand, an experience or a commodity? What are the trends in design leadership, and what are some possible future scenarios? How should an industrial designer prepare for the future?
This is not the end of the conference; it is the beginning of the future.
