Designing Leadership: Skills that Shape Impact

Leadership today must be designed, not inherited. Drawing on nineteen years of leading design and innovation in public healthcare and private sectors, this session explores purposeful leadership as a design discipline. Blending human-centered design, systems thinking, and strategy, it reveals how leaders can shape culture, drive innovation, and thrive in complexity through frameworks that build high-performing, impact-driven teams.

Key takeaways:
1. Why "designing' leadership matters
2. Core leadership skills that designers can use to shape impact
3. Ways to design a leadership style that builds influence and creates win
4. Strategies to make impact sustained in an environment of "just enough budget"
5. Practical actions/behaviors and challenge to watch for

With over two decades of design leadership, Ammneh Azeim serves as the Director of User Experience - Innovation, and Digital Solutions at Health Shared Services, where she leads teams in creating meaningful, accessible, and human-centered healthcare digital experiences. Her contributions have earned international recognition, including features highlighting her work on a COVID-19 support and triage tool, and the ClearMark Award for advancing clarity in public communication. As the founder of UX Edmonton and UX Camp, Ammneh has also played a key role in shaping and nurturing the local UX community, promoting mentorship, collaboration, and continued growth in the design field.