Samia has over 20 years of experience working with startups, tech companies, and creative agencies for both Consumer and Enterprise Experiences. Samia enjoys bringing design teams together with their cross-functional product partners to have a user-centric focus using Design Thinking methods. She believes that having a data-influenced mindset will help Designers better understand the why behind their work in addition to the craft and quality that they bring to their deliverables.
While Samia’s career path has not been linear, some memorable career choices have been being a servant Design Leader for Nike’s Enterprise Experiences and a player-coach Design Leader for Unity’s Online Consumer Experiences. She also worked with a coffee startup designing their online subscription service that Blue Bottle later acquired. During her time at Cuban Council (acquired by Google), she worked on the online experiences for Francis Ford Coppola’s Winery, Shinola, Steven Alan, and Davines, to name a few. An entrepreneur at heart, she also co-founded Karta, a social mapping start-up focused on sharing experiences around places. She can talk your ear off about maps or places anytime! Her early career work has also been featured in Communication Arts.
She currently resides in Laguna Beach, CA, after spending almost a decade in Los Angeles and NYC, respectively. When not sitting in front of her computer, she's most likely trying to find a delicious restaurant, plotting her next travel adventure, or making bread and/or pizza. She is also obsessed with her 2-year-old Merle French bulldog, Flora.
Design Leadership Skills:
Design Thinking Facilitation
Player-Coach
Experience Metrics
Psychological Safety
Diversity of Perspectives
Design in Agile
Design Critiques
Culture & Creativity
Cross-Functional
Global Design Teams
Hiring & Calibration
Career Frameworks
Design Systems
Craft & Quality
Scaling Teams
Clients, Agencies, and Companies she’s worked with and for in her career:
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