In-house Design Leadership

Ignasi Giró is an empathy-led designer with more than twenty years’ experience in design. Author of Teoría Optimista del Fracaso (Optimistic Theory of Failure), he holds a Master’s in Physics and is Head of Strategic Design at Airbus, where he leads a multicultural team across three continents, designing strategic agreements and crafting new services & products for some of the world’s largest airlines.

Before Airbus, he was Lead Designer at SNCF, designing services for millions of users. Entrepreneur at heart, he co-founded companies in Barcelona, Madrid and Paris, created projects like the Timeless Box and worked with brands such as Moleskine, Nike, L’Oréal, AXA, P&G, HolaLuz or SEAT. He has taught at IESE, IED, University of Geneva… and his work has appeared in Wired, TechCrunch or FastCompany. Today, he explores the intersection between AI and empathy in side projects such as empatree or Good Frictions, arguing that, in a world racing toward frictionless intelligences, the most disruptive choice is reinforcing frictionful human experiences.

Gaby has transitioned from analogue to digital design, from digital products to physical and omnichannel services, and from service design to organisation design and transformation, across five countries on three continents.

A born changemaker with a systemic and empathic approach, she moves across silos and hierarchical levels, bringing together people, design, research, content, tech, and business strategy in startups, corporations, and non-profit organisations.

She has built and led design teams; introduced research and content practices; championed a C-level CX role; advised executive teams; and defined ways of working adapted to each organisation’s culture as part of a digital transformation initiative.

Since 2015, she has mentored startup founders, CX and UX leaders and teams, and taught UX and product design, strategy, methodology, and research at Barcelona design schools and universities.

Alessia Rullo is Chapter Lead for UX & Design Validation at Roche Information Solutions, based in Barcelona, where she leads a distributed team of designers, researchers, and human factors engineers across Spain and Austria. She holds a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction, with research focused on neonatal intensive care environments, and has spent her career at the intersection of design, technology, and healthcare. Before Roche, she was Advanced Design Manager and Creative Director at HP, shaping products across its Large Format Printing portfolio. Alongside her industry work, Alessia teaches at IED Barcelona, coordinating the Master’s programme in Strategic Design Management, and consults on innovation and design strategy for organisations including EIT Health, the Government of Andorra, and Miura Private Equity. Her work centres on patient-centred innovation and bringing rigour and empathy together in design validation.

Roman Schoeneboom has spent 12+ years leading research and design across global organizations—Tesco PLC, Lloyds Banking Group, Credit Suisse AG, EY, IKEA, and Siemens—where he translates user insight into organizational strategy.

His expertise spans service design, research strategy, and design operations. Roman doesn’t just conduct research; he builds the systems that enable organizations to listen at scale. He’s mentored 20+ researchers and designers into senior roles, established research governance across 600+ colleagues, and orchestrated multi-stream programmes that informed company-wide roadmaps.

He’s particularly passionate about the nexus of research leadership, team development, and systems thinking. Roman has published in Touchpoint (Service Design Network), contributed to The Design Thinking Playbook (Wiley), and is a certified LEGO Serious Play facilitator.

When not facilitating workshops or mentoring, Roman is an avid mountainbiker and drummer based in Winterthur, Switzerland.