Speakers
Want to learn shiny new things about front-end and design? Our friendly, knowledgeable and approachable speakers will help and inspire you. You’ll also have time to ask all your questions!
Our speakers and workshop teachers are the best in their fields, and they love to share what they know, how they work and what drives them. On top of that, they are all smashingly nice, and really want to help!
I had a blast at the first day of the #SmashingConf. I learned so much from the amazing speakers and the practical tips they shared. I’m eager to apply what I learned to our projects.
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Sophie Koonin
Sophie is the web engineering lead at Monzo Bank in the UK, responsible for the web platform across the organisation and working on internal tooling that powers Monzo’s award-winning customer service.
Building websites since the age of 10, she’s passionate about creating inclusive, accessible and fun websites that people love. Sophie writes about tech & mental health at localghost.dev, builds intentionally useless web apps, and makes music.
- Talk
- So You’ve Decided to Do a Technical Migration
- On the web
- https://localghost.dev/
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Ryan Townsend
With 20 years of experience developing for the web, 8 of those years being as a CTO, Ryan Townsend has driven ecommerce growth for his clients measured in the hundreds of millions and now operates a Fractional CTO consultancy under his brand, TWNSND.
He cares deeply about user experience, particularly web performance, and his pragmatic outlook means that—on the rare occasion that he does wear a shirt—his sleeves stay firmly rolled up: even as an exec, he enjoys getting into the thick of things with product managers and developers.
Outside of the office, you’ll usually find him in the gym, recording video content for ‘Lessons of a CTO’ and trying not to get too many more points on his driving licence.
- Talk
- Our Websites Need a Lifestyle Change, Not a Diet
- On the web
- https://twnsnd.com
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Emily Campbell
Emily is product design leader and advisor, currently focused on helping companies establish AI design as a core discipline through shared principles, patterns, and practice. With a background in economics and research, she combines a deep understanding of behavioral incentives and systems thinking with 15-years of experience honing her craft in digital design.
Emily has led design and research at Vendr and BookClub, consulted and coached design teams at Fortune 100 companies as a senior member of InVisions’ Design Transformation group, and shaped experiences used by millions of people over her career. She stays curious by getting outside as much as possible, staring at clouds, and hanging with her kids (who insist that she is very cool.)
You probably have seen her website Shape of Ai online, where her community explores how patterns and experiences will evolve in a world shaped by Artificial Intelligence.
- Talk
- The Shape of AI
- On the web
- https://www.shapeof.ai
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John V Willshire
John set up Smithery, an independent Strategic Design Practice, in 2011 to help clients make things people want, rather than make people want things. This practice has grown to help organisations take an active role in shaping their futures as they look out over an uncertain landscape.
This involves learning to perceive and understand new realities, sparking appropriate internal innovation, and acting on these instincts to make real change. John’s work is informed by a wide range of different fields, including systemic sensibilities, futures thinking, innovation frameworks, and information design. This combination helps clients think broader, for longer.
Recent projects include developing a Future Trends and Signals System for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), scouting the emerging Climate and Health intersection for Wellcome Trust, and setting a strategic framework for building capabilities for Unilever.
- Talk
- Do the Next Right Thing
- On the web
- https://smithery.com/
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Sandy Dähnert
Sandy Dähnert is a passionate UX/UI researcher and designer with 12+ years of experience.
She is the creator of the Green UX/UI Design course, the Green the Web podcast and numerous free resources and toolkits. As a freelancer, consultant and speaker, she is dedicated to bring green UX, accessibility, mental health, diversity and ethical design into this world.
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Chris Kolb
Chris is co-founder and chief design officer at Wahnsinn Design. A designer by trade and business psychologist by education he tries to build software that makes complexity less daunting and gets out of the way quicker. Together with his co-founder Alex he is hosting the podcast bessermit.design.
- Talk
- All Users Are Stupid
- On the web
- https://chris.wahnsinn.design
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Samantha Gordashko
Sam is a Design Systems expert with a Design Tokens obsession.
As part of the Tokens Studio Team, she's made it her mission to flatten the learning curve for designers and engineers to adopt new technologies in the Design Systems space.
From life-or-death design to genetic testing for psychedelic-assisted therapy, Sam's career as a Design Team of One in tech innovation has given her a unique perspective on ways of working in small teams to build big things. She's known for sharing her pro tips and experiences as Sam I am Designs as a speaker, host of design systems events, and educational content creator.
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Phil Hawksworth
Phil is Principal Developer Relations Engineer at Netlify.
With a passion for browser technologies, and the empowering properties of the web, he loves seeking out ingenuity and simplicity, especially in places where over-engineering is common.
After more than 25 years of building web applications for companies such as Google, Apple, Nike, R/GA, and The London Stock Exchange, Phil has worked to challenge traditional technical architectures in favour of simplicity and effectiveness.
Phil is co-author of “Modern Web Development on the Jamstack” (O’Reilly, 2019).
- Talk
- Getting to the Glass
- On the web
- https://www.hawksworx.com
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Emma Craig
Emma Craig is the Head of UX Research at Miro, a leader in the visual collaboration and innovation space. Previously, she managed research and design teams at Shopify, building everything from the checkout to the Shop app. With nearly 10 years of UX Research experience in product-led companies, she has led teams of varying sizes across a spectrum of product areas, zero to one companion products, and legacy functionality.
She's passionate about building out trusted insights practices that, in collaboration with cross-functional partners, facilitate evidence-driven decision making, and ultimately sharpen the intuition and confidence of people building products.
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Oliver Schöndorfer
Oliver Schöndorfer is a UI & app designer from Austria. He's not an UX ninja unicorn rockstar, but he's hopelessly in love with everything type, runs a UI design business and does typographic consulting for international clients. Oliver’s vision is to make the world more beautiful and diverse through typography. To share his knowledge and passion, he launched the YouTube channel Pimp my Type, offers online courses, and gives workshops.
Oliver also runs the weekly Font Friday Newsletter, writes articles, speaks at conferences and podcast, to make the world more readable, one paragraph at at time.
- Talk
- Typographer vs. Accessibility
- On the web
- https://pimpmytype.com/
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Sarah L. Fossheim
Sarah Fossheim (pronouns: they/them) is an independent accessibility specialist and front-end/UX developer, emphasizing data visualization and ethical tech. Their expertise spans multiple fields, concentrating on fostering accessibility within teams and throughout the product lifecycle.
They also love to make drawings with CSS, write about tech, collect ethical design resources, and have way too many side projects. In their spare time, they’re a wildlife photographer and bird rehabber.
- Talk
- Accessibility in Data Visualization
- On the web
- https://fossheim.io
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Vitaly Friedman
Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. When he is not writing or speaking at a conference, he’s most probably running front-end/UX workshops and webinars. He loves solving complex UX, front-end and performance problems.
- On the web
- https://smashingmagazine.com
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Mystery Speaker
Obviously, our Mystery Speaker is a bit of a… well, Mystery. In true smashing style, you can expect something wonderful. Make sure to set your alarm on day two of the conference, because you don't want to miss this.
- Talk
- Life is a Mystery
