Passing the baton to the new team: looking back and the future of LTUX Amsterdam
Today Ladies That UX Amsterdam community have went far beyond the 3000 members mark. At this point — three initial organisers — Nadia, Roxanne and Vaiva decided to step down and hand over the community to the new team led by Carmen and Sabrina.
During the past four years Ladies that UX Amsterdam community achieved some incredible results:
- organised over 55 events
- connected over 3000 members
- used 10+ different formats
- initiated Mentorship Program and Initiated Mentorship Program v2
- signed numerous partnerships and sponsorships with organisations in the Netherlands and around the world
We have interviewed Nadia, Roxanne and Vaiva to get some of their thoughts about volunteering and their experience growing Ladies that UX Amsterdam.
So it’s been 4 years since the Amsterdam chapter was founded. Why did you decide to join Ladies that UX Amsterdam in the first place?
Nadia: I wasn’t looking to join a community, the community has “found me” 🙂 One day I got a message from Jenny Shen who was searching for female professionals in UX around Amsterdam to start a community. When preparing for my first (and 1st in the history meetup of LTUX Amsterdam) meeting with Ladies That UX Amsterdam — I didn’t really know what to expect. Only three ladies showed-up that day — Jenny, Gabriela (who now works for Booking.com) and me. We talked about the situation around gender diversity in tech, UX work that we have been doing and discussed ambitions for the future. We had a great time, and I got really excited to have more of those events — therefore Jenny and I have continued to grow the community.
Rox: I went to the first official Ladies that UX meetup (which was actually the second Meetup) and my initial response was that I really liked the atmosphere of the meeting. There was such an open discussion and everybody was super involved with the subject. Also it felt to me like a safe space to speak up, even though I’ve never met the crowd before. And when they were looking for more organizers I really felt I wanted to be apart of this.
Vaiva: As a beginner UX Designer I was looking for support from like-minded people. I am self taught designer who experience(d) imposter syndrome so I felt that it’s more likely that ladies would relate to my fears, concerns and struggles. Very quickly I became involved in the organising team as I saw the positive impact these events make to the community. I wanted to help to increase visibility of female role models, inspire ladies to work in tech and provide support to the ones who are already working in this field.
Nice to hear, so looking back what are you proud of?
Rox: The events that we’ve organized got bigger and bigger over the months and we saw more familiar faces. One example in particular was the joint event with Figma and Uber, which was on a hot summer day. However, still about 150 people showed up and the crowd was packed with such a diverse crowd! This really made me proud that this is what our community has grown into. It makes me even more proud that members of our community know each other too and they have a chat during our (or other people’s) events. It gives such a family feeling.
Vaiva: I am personally really proud of the Mentorship Program that ran for 2 years so far. The second year we have matched over 90+ mentees with over 60+ mentors! That’s a real proof that our community is all about knowledge sharing and growing future leaders together!
Also I’m very proud and happy that we manage to create an inclusive atmosphere in our event and our members are from very different backgrounds, genders and expertise.
Do you believe you’ve reached your goal in terms of improving diversity?
Nadia: 100%. We have seen so many female speakers, so many female professionals who have stood up in front of the crowds during our events. I believe that we created a platform for Ladies to find their power and grow it preparing to conquer bigger challenges ahead. Often we’ve been reached out by conference organisers to find a speaker and we’ve helped them find the right female speaker within our community.
Rox: I believe Ladies that UX has definitely raised awareness of the importance of diversity within the workplace and in speaker line-ups. In terms of the last example, often we’ve been reached out by conference organisers to find a speaker and we’ve helped them find the right speaker within our community. I think we still have a long way to go, but we are definitely getting there.
Vaiva: I think that it is very beneficial for both men and women to see a woman in a “power” position in order to fight unconscious bias that affects women leaders.
That’s amazing, and what was in it for you? What did you learn over the years?
Nadia: I feel like I learned a ton. During the last almost 4 years — we have been through a lot of different challenges — starting from working on organisation of events and people around it, all the way to working with organisations to sign partnerships & sponsorships. We also had to make sure that we focused on our own team and taken care of everybody’s interests and personal motivation. This is an incredible experience to boost your knowledge around many diverse areas that will be serving me for the rest of my life. I would advice everybody who wants to learn something new — to try to join a local community!
Rox: I totally agree with Nadia. And also organizing LTUX gave me so many tools that I can use in my own work too. One of my latest learning points was definitely setting up strategies and actually executing them. We’ve experimented with new formats and initiatives and we could immediately test what works and doesn’t work. I believe that Ladies that UX definitely contributed to me growing as a professional.
Vaiva: For me it was a great learning experience in many ways. I got to organise big events, contribute to community management and planning. However the biggest learnings were about myself. I discovered that when I’m working on something that I truly believe-in I can be assertive, I can lead the team, I can make swift decisions and can defend my opinion.
I wish more people who consider themselves as introverted or calm, would just try to step up and see how they feel in a different kind of role. Especially that the World really needs leaders who “are kick-ass bosses without losing their humanity”. Reference to the book “Radical Candor”
So is the last thing we hear from you, or do you have any other plans in the future?
Vaiva: Nothing specific yet, but would really love to start something amazing with the related cause :) For now will be working on my personal project.
Rox: I have the same, I’m first going to take a small break, as I don’t have any specific plans yet. But I already know that I won’t be able to sit still in the near future, so let’s see what the future holds ;)
Nadia: Of course, we are not planning to stop the work around UX / tech community 🙂 We feel like today we have gained so much knowledge to help other people around us, we simply cannot stop with these achievements. I think Ladies That UX Amsterdam is just the beginning of the journey and we will continue to contribute to uniting people around tech!
What is the future for the community?
Rox, Nadia, Vaiva: We feel like Ladies That UX Amsterdam are in the good hands of new organisers team today! We are happy that Carmen and Sabrina have gladly agreed to take over the lead. They are already busy with building new plans and coming up with great initiatives for the community, and we are excited to watch it grow even further!
Any last words from you as co-organisers?
Ladies that UX wouldn’t exist without our members of the community. We’d like to thank each and every one of them, whether you’ve been with us from the start or just started to join one of our events. The community exists because of you and we are super thankful for that. Thank you for the great memories and if you ever meet us in any event, let’s definitely have a drink and chat :)
Carmen & Sabrina, how do you feel? Do you already have something in mind for this new era?
Sabrina: I’m very grateful to Nadia, Rox and Vaiva to give me the opportunity of being part of LTUX Amsterdam. I learnt a lot from them and I’m still learning new things with every event. Now we have a whole new team of enthusiastic girls with very innovative ideas. So you can expect to see very different formats than before. Our main focus will be to help the community to get to know eachother better and create a small family. Besides, we want to organise more events around ethics in design, mental health and growing as a UXer.
Carmen: I have been part of the organising team for 2 years and at the beginning, when I received the news, I was scared of the responsibility, you ladies left such a legacy!… But, at the same time I was excited, since I would get to bring this community to the next stage of its growing path and, I wouldn’t have to do it alone, but with a great team.
For me, I see three main pillars going forward for our strategy:
- Collaboration — I want to make a bigger impact with Ladies That UX Amsterdam! I believe this is such a great platform for offering visibility to women in Tech & Design and a great place to create meaningful connections with peers of all different skills and exchange knowledge.
- Education through community engagement — for next year I want to personally focus on growing the mentorship program. There is so much demand for this that we got several times the question whether we can do it twice a year.
- Experimentation — as Sabrina mentioned we will be focusing on new formats more and different segments of our audience. We want to involve and reach the seniors and design leaders in our community.
We want to ensure that Ladies that UX Amsterdam stays one the most successful chapter from the 50+ out there and continues to make even larger impact!
