A group of passionate thinkers and doers, with a purpose.
This is Joint Futures. The conference is inspired by the pressing needs of our profession to become more mature, inclusive & business-minded. We aim to view design holistically through different macro and micro lenses. All of us strongly strive to create a community and a safe space to learn, get inspired, meet like-minded people, and gather actionable insights to create change in your own teams.
Angelos Arnis
Main Organizer & Speaker Relations
A strategic designer focusing on delivering experiences with humane principles. Currently changing the ways of working at Elisa, Finland's largest telecom operator. For the past 10 years, Angelos has been working with startups and products, both in early and high growth stage. Angelos is a community organizer at Designer Hangout, one of the largest design-related slack communities globally (15.000+ members!). He is also one of the main instigators of DesignOps Helsinki meet-up community. Alumnus organizer of DSCONF & Junction – world’s biggest hackathon. In his free time, Angelos is making music, and enjoying computer games.
Yves Florack
Participants & Community Outreach
Born in the Netherlands, raised in Switzerland and educated as an Industrial Designer in one of Europe’s Design Capitals: Eindhoven (NL), Yves decided to move to Helsinki in 2015, founded the UXHel Community in 2016 and now works as an Experience Design Lead at Siili. Alumnus organizer of DSCONF.
Dave Malouf
Program Curation
Dave Malouf is a Consultant, Coach, and Educator. With 25 years of experience in designing and leading design teams, Dave has tuned his efforts squarely on making designers and design teams more valuable through both education and consulting. In this regard, Dave has focused his attention on Design Operations (#designOps), having co-authored the first book on the topic, and co-founded the first conference.
Veronika Georgieva
Operations & Business Development
Born in a small town in the USSR, used to compete in gymnastics before academic ambitions have brought her to Helsinki. Graduated from Aalto University School of Business and CEMS. Experienced in international business development, lately have been passionate about design thinking and lean startups. An avid gastronomy enthusiast.
Tanja Pelkonen
Art Director & Marketing Coordinator
Tanja has been in a field of design for 10 years and worked from smaller marketing agencies to big client corporations. Last few years she’s been working in Helsinki-based digital agency Redland as a Senior Designer and project manager.
Advisory board
Jina Anne
Design Systems Pioneer, Clarity organizer
Jina is a design systems advocate and coach. At Amazon, Jina was Senior Design Systems Lead. At Salesforce, she was Lead Designer on the Lightning Design System. She led the CSS architecture and style guide for the Apple Online Store. She's also worked at GitHub, Engine Yard, Crush + Lovely, and Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, and more. She developed projects with W3C, Mass.gov, FedEx, etc.
Jina coauthored Design Systems Handbook, Fancy Form Design, and The Art & Science of CSS. She's published several articles. She's spoken at conferences including Adobe MAX. Print Magazine featured Jina as a leading San Francisco creative.
Emily Campbell
Sr. Specialist, Design Transformation, InVision
Emily Campbell is a Senior Design Specialist on InVision’s Design Transformation team, where she helps design teams and leaders mature their practices and increase their impact through workshops, inclusive presentations, co-creation, and coaching. Previously, she helped fortune 100 companies reshape the way they design their organizations as enterprise design and product lead for Degreed, and grew the design team at HackerRank from its inception to supporting over a million users. She focuses on human-centered design, translating creative strategy into business impact, building a culture of leadership, and collaborating across disciplines.
Hana Nagel
Service Designer, Element AI
With experience ranging from non-profits to start-ups to enterprise, Hana's work is connected by a commitment to using a research-driven approach to solve problems for people. In her current role as a Service Designer with Element AI, she works with clients and the EAI product team to identify the right problems to solve with AI and ultimately deliver AI solutions that augment human decisions while delivering positive systemic impact. Born in California and raised in Vancouver, Hana firmly believes the West Coast is the best coast. Despite this, she is currently loving life in Montreal, which she shares with her fiancée, a large cat, a smol dog, and 62 plants #urbanjungle
Josh Silverman
Designer and entrepreneur at Startnership. DesignOps consultant with Blend
For 25 years, Josh Silverman has created successful relationships through design. He speaks and hosts workshops globally, teaches and guest critiques nationally, and is always connecting people and communities. Currently, he is consulting in design operations for Salesforce and Blend, and advising startups and Joint Futures. Most recently, he advised and designed for the portfolio of companies with Sequoia Design Lab, served as Twitter's first hire in design operations, and was one of the founding designers of the IBM Cloud Garage.
Josh is preternaturally curious about patterns in decision making and the shapes of teams. On the daily, he is driven by great pairings, trusting relationships, harmonious intersectionality, and long bike rides.
Tatiana Mac
Independent Designer
Tatiana Mac is an independent American designer who has been designing and developing since she was 10. Currently she works directly with organisations to build products and design systems with accessibility and inclusion in mind. She believes that design heavily influences our social landscape. When ethically-minded, she thinks designers can dismantle exclusionary systems in favor of community-focused, inclusive ones.
She edits for A List Apart, moonlights as a wardrobe stylist, and boxes. She's seen 33 countries and is always scheming to see more.
Elisa Oyj
Mikko Häkkinen
Advisor, Elisa Oyj
Mikko has been designing digital products and services for the last 15 years, for a wide range of different industries. Currently, he is Lead Service Designer and is responsible for building company-wide design system at Elisa, which is a Finnish telecom operator. Alumnus organizer of DSCONF.
Sakari Volanen
Advisor, Elisa Oyj
Employer branding enthusiast and passionate leader from Finland living in Helsinki. Sakke is a builder of all things with broad range of skills and he has worked in the industry 15+ years. Currently, he is creating events and new businesses at Elisa. In his free time, Sakke hangs out with his family and enjoys movies.
Jouni Linkola
Advisor, Elisa Oyj
Jouni is a service and business design enthousiast from Finland. In the last 4 years he has been leading the Design team in Elisa, ensuring an aligned User Experience across all products and developing the service culture towards omnichannel experiences. At his free time, Jouni enjoys the Finnish nature and travelling.
Event Experience
Reetta Sinervo
Account Manager, Tapaus
Reetta is a black belt professional in the event industry with a passion for hot yoga and sweet treats. Reetta enjoys creating once in a life time events and experiences to her clients and will always push for extra mile in every project. If Reetta wasn’t working as an Account Director for Tapaus, she would probably be a food critic or a radio host. Reetta has studied in Turku University of Applied Sciences for Bachelor’s degree in Media. Even though Reetta is not living in Turku anymore, she will always have Turku in her heart.
Janne Hakkarainen
Executive Producer, Tapaus
Janne is an enthusiastic event professional with an extensive experience of exceeding the expectations of various Finnish as well as international clients. During the last six years of his career he has been involved in hundreds of different projects in three different continents and is currently working as an Executive Producer for Finland’s leading B2B creative event agency TAPAUS. The time that he has outside of producing B2B events, he spends on organizing the annual Event Industry World Championships of Hockey (EIWCH), photography, cooking and listening to 90s rap music.
Emma Liuski
Producer, Tapaus
Emma is a hands-on producer with 5 years of experience in the event industry. She has carried out number of various size events in responsible roles over the years. She is in her element during the event when the show is running smoothly, and you can feel the excited energy of the guests. Emma has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and is specialized in Marketing and Management. During her free time Emma loves traveling and exploring new places, playing with her Boston terrier puppy Manu and watching bad reality TV shows and crime documentaries.
Volunteer Team
Amar Nath Shaw
UX Designer, Nokia Software
Amar is a UX and Service designer based in Helsinki, Finland since 2013. At present working at NOKIA Software (Design System, 5G Network Management - core & radio domain). He has studied Bachelor in Industrial Design from NID, India and Masters from Aalto University, Finland. Amar has 7 years of work experience in the area of consumer products, mobility, fitness, healthcare and e-commerce. He has experience living & working in Germany, France, Netherlands and Finland along with most of the cities in India. Travel Bike enthusiast, Love to cook, travel, watch cricket and play ping-pong. His friend calls him- ´Curry Master´ since he cooks delicious (chicken) curry.
Minh Luu
UX Designer, Lead Desk
Minh moved to Finland from Vietnam in 2011. Along the way, she found her passion for Service design. Minh is very keen on knowledge sharing and learning from others. She also enjoys working closely with developers to improve the design process and implement the design system. Minh spends her free time doing personal projects, cooking, playing video games, house-keeping and serving taking care of her cats.
Namrata Sethi
Marketing Coordinator, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences
Namrata is an outgoing, spirited leader with a passion for design, communication and creative visualisation. Namrata has 10 years experience in interior design and has been passionate about the power of well-designed experiences. She has forayed into being a UX designer as she wishes to expand her knowledge and experience on design in a customers daily life. She has moved to Finland 1.5 years ago and is currently working as a Marketing Coordinator at Haaga Helia.
Nastia Chudnovska
Business IT Student, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences
Nastia's main focus of studies is UX design. She has applied as a volunteer to Joint futures to build network, learn about design and have fun!
Jasmin Dahncke
Freelancer
Driven by a strong passion for Games and User Experience Jasmin has worked for over a decade in and around the games industry. The first part of her career was spent on crafting immersive editorial designs in form of game magazines and strategy guides and she then moved on to become a game developer herself and create engaging game worlds as a user interface and experience designer. Besides crafting games Jasmin has been involved in improving the day to day work for the development teams she has been part of and is looking to transform the way we work by helping studios and the games industry community to nourish and maintain a user centric culture.
Betsy Mei-Chun Lin
Product Designer
Betsy Mei Chun Lin is a digital product designer from Taiwan, previously in New York and currently residing in Berlin. She's focused in UX/UI design, strategy and branding, with a background in traditional graphic design and motion graphics. She's interested in using design as means to explore the relationship between business, technology, people and culture. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, playing the ukulele and people watching while sitting sipping on coffee while sitting outside of a cafe.
Claudia Núñez
Berlin-based Designer
Claudia is a Berlin-based designer from Chile. She has a Master’s degree in Integrated Design and a Minor in Entrepreneurship Management. Claudia isspecialized in planning and executing participatory research methods for social innovations. She enjoy exploring methodologies for their implementation, as well as UX tools to deliver optimal solutions based on human-centred design. Design for wellbeing is her passion. Her goal is to improve the quality of life for society.
Maria Kriegmaier
Junior Designer
Only recently holding her Bachelor Degree in Visual Communication, she is passionate about print - especially Editorial Design. As she made a book about a more sustainable lifestyle for her bachelor thesis, she decided to apply for the master program „Creative Sustainability“ at Aalto University. An open-minded, curious designer who wants to gain a deeper understanding for complex coherences when it comes to our environment and which impact we can make on it with good design. Therefore, she is always interested in getting to know new people from all around the world with different views and perspectives.
Anna Palokangas
Service Designer, Founder
Anna is a strong believer in the power of excellent customer experience and she is not shy to spread the good word. With background in product design and business Anna have found her passion in service design five years ago. She likes to keep things real, tend to look the bright side of life and try not to take herself too seriously.
Katariina Kunnaton
Service Designer
Service Designer with a background in business. Lately has worked in the mobility sector working with Service Design, UX design and data. During her free time Katariina likes to read, play video games and experiment in growing plants from whatever seeds she finds.
Gabriela Salinas
Director of Design, GBM
Gabriela is a Mexican service designer, co-founder of Service Design Mexico and Frontstage Conference. She’s currently working as Director of Design at GBM. With a Master in Business Innovation from CEDIM, she previously worked at BBVA Bancomer and the international innovation firm Idea Couture. Gabriela also teaches at the Master in Strategic Design and Innovation at IBERO, and at CENTRO, where she’s also studying a Futures Studies postgraduate specialty.
Irina Lensu
UX Designer, Pixels Helsinki
I'm a Ui/Ux designer from Pixels Helsinki. Irina has gotten a bachelor degree in media technology. She from Russia but have been living in Finland for a while.
Riina Salmivalli
Senior Specialist, CSC IT Center
Riina works as a Senior Specialist at CSC IT Center for Science Ltd. and is a Co-founder and Designer at Fambition Consulting. She is a Master student in Service Design specializing in digital nudging, and has a passion towards Finnish work-life balance and future of working life.
Venla Inkari
Designer, Avoin
Venla Inkari is a designer currently figuring out how to create sustainable digital products at Avoin.
Otto Olavinen
Director, Northbay, Co-Founder, Health Design
The yearly event is focused on the application of design in the healthcare sector. Otto also organizes the Health Design Science pitching competition, awarding 20 000€ to new healthcare innovations with sponsorship from Instrumentarium Science Foundation. Northbay is a creative agency focusing on the interplay between technology and humanity. As an entrepreneur, Otto doesn’t see a clear separation between his work and personal projects. It’s all about making a positive impact locally and globally.
Sanita Kovaleva
UX Designer, IF Insurance
Sanita has a diverse experience including business consulting, social research, communication systems and strategy development. Her main driving force is curiosity. Curiosity about human behavior and experiences, collaborative methods and technologies brought her to the world of service design and UX. She has helped out at UX Riga Conference for three years, that led to her current job as a UX designer at If P&C Insurance. Otherwise Sanita can be found trekking in the mountains or having a hearty conversation in random places around the world.
Samuel van Dijk
Freelance Audiovisual designer, Chaindata
Audiovisual designer, creative storyteller and music technology teacher. Conceptually minded and technology savvy, he captures the essence of a subject using distinctive camera angles, visionary sound-design and inventive creative productions for marketing, print and digital solutions. Besides producing and releasing music on vinyl records more than 10 years, he regularly plays around Europe in clubs and festivals with his electronic music projects.
Livia Hakala
Lead Designer, Motley Agency
Based in Helsinki for the last 10 years, Livia has collaborated with teams of all sizes, shapes and industries. Currently she's a design consultant at Motley, facilitating companies envision and build services & experiences all day. At the moment leading design for environmental impact, within a b2b product team. Other stuff keeping Livia busy these days include: an exciting academic research in employee experience design, occasional volunteering activities & family life with a toddler.
Jenny Jokinen
Brand Manager, Bayer Oy
Jenny works as a Brand Manager in the pharmaceutical industry and is currently (full 2019) on a study leave to finalise her master’s degree in Service Design.Jenny is a marketing oriented and customer-centric business professional with wide experience in marketing, trade and customer experience.Jenny values empathy and peopleand gets excited about challenging projects and amused by verbal talent,as well as witty sense of humour.Jenny is a social person known forher positivism,can do attude and teamwork skills.
Valeria Gasik
Co-founder, Selma Finance
Valeria is a co-founder and lead designer of Selma Finance. She gets kicks of making complicated things simple and delightful.
Helena Meissner
Frontend Developer & Customer Researcher, Aiven
Originally from Germany, Helena moved to Finland 3 years ago to continue her master studies in computer science at Aalto University. Excited about creating solutions that allow people to interact with machines, she chose her major in interactive technologies. As her minor she chose a course in innovative product development (ME310) based on the design thinking process from Stanford d-school. Having dived deeper into design has opened up new perspectives. What motivates her is to view problems from a broader perspective to find more impactful solutions.
Munilal Jain Karishma
Designer
Born and brought up in India, came to Finland in 2017. Recently graduated from Aalto University in (HCI) Human Computer Interaction and Design master's programme. Presently, a UX design trainee at Ericsson and a part of Designing for children's right association (D4CR) . She is passionate about applying design thinking to make a better future, interested in climate change solutions and education sector. Hobbies include travelling and outdoor sports activities.
Yasuhiro Yoshida
Founder, Quokka
A full-stack software developer formerly working for companies in Japan and Germany building BtoB/C products and currently, after turning independent in 2013, focusing more on startups with customer-facing products.
Phuong Nguyen
Freelance Product Designer
Phuong is a talented designer who was born in a far northern city of Vietnam, based in Finland since 2013. She has a B.E. in Media degree. She is continuing her education as an M.A. student at Aalto University in the field of design and production. She has helped organizations and startups improve the user experience of their products and services. Her background is also on leadership, project and partnership management of events. In her free time, she likes to practice calligraphy, go to concerts, and try out new activities with friends.
Kateryna Fan
Service Designer, F-Secure
Service Designer often wearing many hats. Currently on a mission at F-Secure to make it easier for people to choose and buy what’s best for them. Big fan of simplicity and problem solving. Obsessed dog mama.
Stefanie Scheid
UX / UI Designer, HappyOrNot Ltd.
Stefanie is a UX Designer at HappyOrNot in Tampere, Finland. She is originally from Germany but been been living in Finland for about 6,5 years now. Stefanie enjoy all design-related things, and her background is in psychology and human-technology interaction. In her free time, she like playing football, climbing and hanging out with friends.
Lina is an experienced professional designer with over 13 years of London and international market exposure working in agency and client side, B2B and B2C environments, governmental ministerial departments, start-up and charity circuits. She moved to Helsinki from London in 2017 and has involved herself in contributing, connecting and developing the local design and tech communities within the local ecosystem. Lina has a deep interest in people centred design and approaches that carry positive social and environmental impacts.
