In this episode, Alison is joined by Corina Ocanto, a workplace strategist who has spent her career translating human needs into environments where people can thrive. Their conversation traces the quiet power of leading from the middle—those moments when influence comes not from authority, but from attention, empathy, and the courage to ask better questions.

In this episode, Alison sits down with Rachael Dietkus, a social worker and designer whose practice challenges the false divide between care and design. Together, we talk about luck not as chance or magic, but as something built through persistence, timing, and the quiet work of showing up for others.

In this episode, Alison sits with her lifelong friends — Norma, Delia, and Vanessa — women who have known her through every version of herself. Together, they trace the arc of friendship that began in the streets of 1980s and ’90s New York City and has carried them through love, loss, and reinvention.

In this episode, Alison sits with filmmaker and storyteller Elaine Del Valle, whose debut feature Brownsville Bred captures the beauty and brutality of growing up in 1980s Brooklyn.

This episode explores the edges of uncertainty with Jessie Shefrin — a conversation about wandering, testing, stumbling, and ultimately emerging into new clarity.

In the final episode of season one, Jacqui and Alison celebrate making it through an entire first season during the midst of a global pandemic, economic crisis, and the Black Lives Matter movement. They reflect on the times with Quinnton Harris, his journey, and the importance of Juneteenth not just as a day, or a moment, but a call for organizational change.

In this episode, Jacqui and Alison go broad and extensive (and somewhat meandering ) about future opportunity areas for Design Operations and how we, as design leaders, can lead the charge in laying the groundwork for that future.

In episode 10 Jacqui and Alison begin to dig into the current state of Design Operations – the agony, and the ecstasy.

In this episode, Matt Abrahams chats with us about how to be more mindful of how we communicate and bring intention to our daily interactions. We also ask him how we, as hosts, could talk a Lil less and land subject matter a Lil more.

How do we, as Design leaders, continue to balance the present need, with the future state – in service of business needs to change and evolve in order to remain relevant.

Businesses are trying to implement Design Thinking & Human-Centered Design – the struggle is real.

Connie Liu is here to tell us designing a better world isn’t going to come from textbooks. We have to meet people where they are, give them the tools to think differently, empower them to be the change they want to see, and change the face of the mirrortocracy.

How do we remove the stigma about what it takes to make an impact? The good stuff happens when people stop being polite…and start getting real.

Sometimes not thinking too hard about something, helps you find some much needed answers. In this episode, Jacqui shares her experience of the boiling ocean of Design Operations.

In the third episode of our inaugural season, we welcome our first guest and who better than Alexis Loyd, VP of Design at Medium, Co-Founder of Ethical Futures Lab, and third in line to the throne after Oprah and Beyonce.

“To feel left out is a deeply human problem, which is why its consequences carry such heft and why its causes are so hard to root out of even the healthiest workplaces.” The Value of Belonging at Work, HBR

Alison and Jacqui will unpack this and several other things as we explore inclusion and what it’s like to feel remote during the time of COVID 19.

Scale requires something greater than determination in order to navigate an organization through change. It requires the power of the community. And if there is one thing you can count on in Design, it is change.