Last month I had an incredible opportunity to attend the Design Leadership Summit in Toronto. After a quick flight out of Newark, I landed in Canada and spent the next few days exploring the beautiful city and enjoying an excellent conference.

The Design Leadership Summit was hosted by the Toronto chapter of the DesignX Community. Led by Preet Singh, this group is on a mission to spark community, collaboration, and creativity within the global design industry. Overall, the event was exceptionally-well run – it was organized, engaging, and inspiring.

Over the two days I attended the conference, there were many presentations, workshops, and talks to attend. There was also plenty of time to meet other attendees – definitely a highlight for me! Each speaker connected with the audience, sharing personal and professional insights. From Jared Spool to Margaret Stewart, there were industry practitioners from around the United States, imparting their knowledge on an eager audience.

Leadership was the focus of the conference, and presentations included Disney’s UX maturation (Jared Spool), focusing on impact over output (Jen Cardello), adapting by meeting your teams where they are (Anne Purves), making hard decisions to get the best outcomes (Daniela Jorge), valuing communication over tools (Thomas Lowry), and respecting the difficulty and complexity of design decisions (Margaret Stewart). It was truly an incredible event for me to attend, and I came away with more knowledge and inspiration than I could fit in my suitcase!

I love attending conferences, and the Design Leadership Summit proved to be yet another valuable experience for me. If you get a chance to attend next year, I would highly recommend it! Oh, Canada – I cannot wait to return!

Image Source: https://designleadership.io/ (website and Facebook).