Design Voices: Interview with Nicole Kahn, VP of Design
Welcome to our first edition of Design Voices, where we invite industry leaders and experts at Carta to share their insights and experiences on the world of design.
Our first guest is Nicole Kahn, the VP of Design at Carta. Nicole is a highly skilled and seasoned design leader that creates meaningful experiences for people, and empowers creative teams to do the same. Nicole is passionate about designing for deeply complex and human challenges while leading with empathy and intuition, clear and concise communication, collaboration and co-creation. Nicole sat down with us to share her thoughts and perspectives on work, personal growth, and beyond.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
It’s usually very structured! I go on a run for about an hour first thing in the morning; then I come back, and make a yummy breakfast. I enjoy being on the East coast and working before the West Coast wakes up — it gives me time and space for heads down work. I usually have a good 1–1.5 hours to think, since calls typically start around 10 am ET. My calendar is filled up with one on ones (1:1s) of people I manage, one offs, and meetings with PMs and engineers. I always try to block half an hour for lunch, so I can eat and get a bit of fresh air. I try to wrap up around 5 pm ET on the days I am working from home. I also enjoy making dinner since it’s a nice way to unwind at the end of the day. After dinner with the family, I put the kiddos to bed, check Slack and watch some television for an hour with my husband, read a little and go to bed early.
How would you describe your first 100 days at Carta?
The first few months I swung widely back and forth between excited and overwhelmed. There’s a lot to wrap your head around, but it’s a warm and welcoming place with a lot of opportunities for design and for the role.
What is your vision for Carta’s design team?
If I were to sum it up in shorthand, it would be to encourage designers to lead more. We’re a little bound to the roadmap right now. A big part of my goal is to get ahead of that. How do we develop the design vision and strategy? What should a multi-product experience look like? What’s the future navigation of our core Carta product? How does this all work as a platform? There’s lots of exciting projects in the pipeline. The visual rebrand and the reimagination of our user experience across the platform are top of mind for me. Designers have this magical tool of being able to visualize and bring strategies to life, which informs and inspires a wonderful conversation. We need to do that more. We need to lead more.
To achieve your vision for Carta’s design team, what do we need to start doing more of?
I like my designers loud and opinionated in whatever form that should be. Examples include advocating for what should be on the roadmap, communicating how much time is needed for discovery and vision, or offering up a strategic framework that can serve as a North Star. When engaging with vision work, I’m a fan of being design led in terms of research. We often have hunches, but we need to bring that back to research to explore. It’s important to take a step back and ask the right questions: Is this the best we can do? Can it be better? It’s on us and the product team to create that time and space to advocate for our vision.
As a manager, what do you think reports can do to make the most out of their 1:1s?
Come prepared to work on stuff together! Some of the better manager/managee relationships are when someone comes to me saying “I’m having a difficult time with [x], how do I improve that?” Find those things you want to work on together, whatever form they might be — content, management, growth, skills. I bring a document with things I want to talk about. It’s always more satisfying when you have a specific thing to work on together.
You’ve talked a bit about your management style/philosophy previously: “I definitely identify as a mama bear — I’m fiercely loyal to my team, have high standards, and can be a little direct. I believe in saying ‘the thing’ always is service of what’s best for the individual, the work, and the company.” Can you elaborate on it a little more?
That pedagogy comes with a sense of responsibility. When I was at IDEO I started a storytelling platform with a colleague in Chicago as a grassroots approach to raise the bar of storytelling. We observed designers spending all their time on developing amazing design solutions, but not very much time on their client presentations to share their design work. We began with an intentional process to coach 5–6 IDEOers to develop a compelling personal story, then showcased it in front of the entire office. We called it IDEO Stories and it became a huge event within the community. The first IDEO Stories was great, we picked great people to work with and they shared all kinds of stories including traumatic stories about things that changed their lives. There was one guy whose story just wasn’t working — it was just ok, it wasn’t awesome. I did the best I could with the time we had. I congratulated him afterward, and he felt bad; and I realized I’d failed him as a coach. I recognized there were issues with the story, and if I had given that feedback, the story would’ve landed better and he’d have felt prouder. I should have said ‘the thing’ in service of the work and the individual.
The mama bear part is just me — these are my people, don’t mess with them! But with that comes the responsibility — how do we raise the bar? How do we aim for excellence and deliver?
Why should designers, researchers, and copywriters join the Carta team?
Carta is mission oriented, and in a space where you get to peel away layers of the onion to reveal new business opportunities. Carta Total Comp (CTC) is a great example — as a business, we started with equity and cap tables, then realized we were sitting on compensation data. Now, we get to explore the bounds of this new business opportunity.
I love that Carta is a high culture company. You experience our Identity Traits daily when interacting with the people at Carta. They are helpful, kind, relentless, and unconventional. It’s a great environment to work in!
Any advice for younger, less experienced designers?
Do the work, and ask for more! I think both curiosity and bias towards action are important skills for any designer, especially the more junior ones. As you’re doing the work, get curious about where else it can be applied and understand the ‘why’ behind it. Try to be biased towards action, offer solutions and not just problems. Using that designer’s muscle to help solve problems, yours and other people’s, will help accelerate your career. The more work you do, the more you can speak about it confidently and make connections to other opportunities.
What are the key lessons you’ve learned from the different phases in your career?
Post-grad school, I learned how to trust my intuition, develop a strong point of view, how to push for what’s next and how to tell good stories. IDEO taught me the magic of designing — that detail matters. It also taught me to experiment with leadership styles, that it’s about the people, not the project — and that with good people, the most boring work can become excellent. WeWork helped me shake some of my impostor syndrome. There, I realized I am an expert, and my opinion is valid. During my time at WeWork, many bosses left, but that created more opportunities for me to exercise my leadership, which built confidence and experience. And now, here I am!
What motivates you?
My happy place is people. I get motivated by working with people who are experts at what they do. I like working with them as they ‘nerd out’ in their domain. I love the opportunity to learn from them. I’m also a huge podcast listener. I’m a sucker for first person stories so I listen to a lot of interviews.
What’s your favorite podcast?
I listen to the Design Matters podcast. It’s a great one — you get to hear interviews of how designers got to where they are in their careers. I also love a good underdog story, especially from the Rich Roll podcast. The podcast host is a recovering addict and an ultra athlete, and he invites amazing guests to tell their stories. One of my favorite episodes is with Chip Conley who started Joie De Vivre, the boutique hotel company, then went to Airbnb to advise the founders. He shares a great personal story, with elements of struggle, and what he learned along the way. I love having the opportunity to understand the world from other people’s perspectives.
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