Rachel Ilan Simpson
Product Designer & Founding Designer
at Ilan Studio
From 0 to Scale: Building and Transforming Design at Startups & Scale-ups
Talk Synopsis
How do you build design from the ground up and scale it as your company grows? In this talk, Rachel shares lessons from both ends of the spectrum: bootstrapping design as the first hire at a fast-moving startup, and leading design transformation as the Director of UX at a scale-up. Drawing on her time at Google Chrome & Search and real-world case studies, she’ll cover how to move fast with component libraries, create cross-functional collaboration, evolve design systems at scale, set a clear design vision, and hire effectively at every stage. Whether you're starting from zero or scaling up, this talk offers practical playbooks you can use.
About Rachel Ilan Simpson
Rachel is a Freelance Product Designer for startups and tech companies. After spending 8 years building Chrome and Search at Google, she was Director of UX at UK EdTech Unicorn Multiverse, and Founding Designer at London AI software generation Startup Tessl. Her clients and collaborators include Seth Godin, BMW/DriveNow, Microsoft AI Health, and Doctors without Borders. She co-founded the first German version of the Maker Faire, and founded Design Jam (designj.am).
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