Etsy by design
Etsy by Design is a portfolio of programs I spearheaded as a solution to a professional develop challenge recognized around presentation and storytelling in design lightnings and Executive Team Check-Ins. Knowing how critical these skills are in influencing product experiences, I oversaw the creation of 3 self-sustaining programs, recruited a team and developed an operational rhythm for each program.
etsy by design’s
3 focus areas
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1. public speaking training
Develop essential storytelling and speaking skills in junior design talent that builds their confidence when speaking to Executive Team leaders and influences their stakeholders.
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2. design conferences & Events
Produce conferences and events where innovative leaders are invited to exchange ideas with Etsy leaders on making commerce human.
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3. thought leadership
Create a hub that promotes speaking and writing engagement opportunities internally and externally. Encouraging design leaders to push the larger community on what it means to keep commerce human.
Etsy’s design team is not structured to have a central operations so many of the projects that are not product specific needs to be done by design individual contributing designers and design managers in addition to their day to day work.
It goes without saying that it can be a challenge to convince anyone to take on work that is not directly related to their product OKRs and so being strategic and building this into individuals personal growth plans, providing autonomy, and rituals and rhythms that feel supportive was key to our success.
audience feedback of the 2020 conference
“I really enjoyed this! I think it was ran really smoothly and can see this scaling up to a public-facing event one day. I see it as a great opportunity to get our name out there as a team, build thought leadership, and create a candidate pipeline for future hiring.”
— etsy designer
“Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you, just felt so proud to be apart of this team and part of something really good and important :)”
— etsy designer
“I LOVED this event - it's genuinely the best thing I think I've experienced at Etsy so far and I felt it was really inspiring both as a designer and Etsy design team member.”
— etsy designer
“I look forward to the future con topics, especially ethical design, but I would also love to see this storytelling event again next December as a chance to strengthen our design community on a human level and give us a chance to all practice public speaking and sharing our stories with one another.”
