An interview with Christina Goldschmidt
Christina Goldschmidt is VP, Product Design at Warner Music Group and will be speaking on ‘Career storytelling: Elevating your career journey, no matter what happened’ at Leading Design London 2024 (6–7 November) at the Barbican Centre.
Christina Goldschmidt is an award-winning design leader who is known for driving innovation and transforming product design teams to work at enterprise scale. She has a proven track record of fostering cultures that drive both business and social impact by unlocking the power of data. Before joining Warner Music Group as their VP of Product Design, Christina spent 25 years gaining cross-functional experience at Fortune 500 companies like Etsy, Accenture, Morgan Stanley, American Express, Omnicom Media Group, The Discovery Channel and others.
Ahead of her talk at Leading Design London, we caught up with Christina to ask her about overcoming challenges as a design leader.
What would you say the top three character traits of an effective leader are?
Choosing just three is so hard! My first is going to be a cheat as I think an effective leader must be flexible, adapting to the situation, different cultures and different people and what’s needed at the time (and it goes without saying having the emotional intelligence to do all of that). The next I really think matters is transparency as it helps teams put things in context and builds trust. And choosing just one last one is so hard, but I’m going to go with relationship-building as things happen in business through relationships and it’s how you advocate for your team, the work and achieve so much.
Which leader has had the greatest impact on you over the years?
Mary K Young who was my CMO from 2000 to 2006 was the most impactful leader I’ve ever had. She was an amazing example of how to be an authentic leader who brought technical and strategic expertise, but also cared about her team and bridged being a real human and integrating her life and showed up as her whole self. She also mentored me and inspired me to move to NYC and go to business school and really further my career in so many ways. And she continued to mentor me so many years after we worked together, which was a real gift.
What is the greatest challenge you have faced as a leader?
My entire job and career is problem solving so there are so many challenges that could fit the bill. I could talk about a hard project or leading the team through a difficult moment like a lay off. But I think the hardest thing for me has been when a past job wasn’t working out and I was on the brink of being fired and had to acknowledge that and work through it. This is not something that I talk about openly. But during challenging times when budgets are so tight and there is the perception that there is so much great talent available, I think that many people are facing this issue or maybe have been actually fired or laid off when their company didn’t want to take the time to follow performance management processes. First off, I want to share that this can happen to anyone and that if this is happening or has happened to you, it has nothing to say about who you are, your self worth, your skills and your ability to contribute to a future organisation. Often times this is the outcome that happens where there is a misalignment of people, culture, environment, expectations… time and place sort of thing. I was much better off leaving that company. And I went on to do really amazing things after. And most importantly it helped me learn what to avoid in the future and where I wanted to be next and what I need to shine.
You’ve had a fascinating career working across a variety of sectors for some of the world’s most recognisable brands including Etsy, Accenture, American Express, The Discovery Channel and now Warner Music Group. Do these different environments require different skills and if so how do you navigate between them?
Yes they do! They all have different cultures, different ways of working and sometimes have different primary goals and business models. My approach is to treat it like any design challenge! We have the tools to understand complex problems, cultures and new spaces, we do it every day to make experiences, software, apps and websites … and services… but as designers we have the skills to understand this, manage stakeholders and succeed. By treating a new role like a design problem it makes it less daunting and you can see the new as something you can solve (and something you can project manage). Give yourself early wins and enjoy what you learn!
What advice would you have for someone who is looking to make a career change? Especially if they have left a difficult role where you may have had setbacks?
If you are looking to make a career change, think about what your goals are, what end state you are hoping to get to and determine if you think you have enough transferable skills to get there in one role or maybe if it might take two roles. For instance, are you looking to change both functions and industries or just one of those things. You might need to do both over multiple roles. But always lean into your strengths and what you can bring to the table, i.e. deep industry knowledge but taking it to a company that might be willing for you to do more learning as you switch and grow into a new or related function. If you are looking to move past a setback, I want to urge you to reframe. Often times there are unique and differentiating aspects that make you unique and poised to take on work that more traditional linear paths don’t benefit from. Of course every situation is different so this specific advice might not apply as your setback might be a different one. But a good example that I have was at the down turn of ‘08, I was not able to get a design job post business school and ended up getting a product management job. At the time I was very stressed about this, however after the fact it was really amazing experience that gave me many more strategic skills, technical skills, etc.
It’s been a tough few years and many design leaders have been managing in incredibly difficult environments. What advice do you have for someone who is struggling with these ongoing crises?
Many leaders are indeed managing in incredibly difficult environments and a hard part of that can be delivering difficult news to the team or being the face of the company to their team or it might mean that you as a leader are making tough decisions like which of your team might be laid off, etc. The best advice I can give is that you need to care for yourself first and foremost in these difficult times else you can’t show up to support your team. Taking time off, even if its your nights or weekends and being able to follow mental health practices that support you matter even more now that ever. That idea of putting your air mask on first so you can keep helping others really holds here.
And finally, what are you currently listening to, reading or watching?
Listening to Charlie XCX as it was a Brat summer :) But on a more serious note, I really enjoyed the book Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg and I listen to the Pivot podcast every week to stay up on tech news and larger culture topics. And to unwind I’m still enjoying the golden age of tv/streaming with shows like Interview with the Vampire, Only Murders in the Building, The Bear, Kaos etc.
We are delighted to have Christina speak about ‘Career storytelling: Elevating your career journey, no matter what happened’ at Leading Design London 2024 (6–7 November).
Leading Design is brought to you by Clearleft, a strategic design consultancy based in the UK. We work with global brands to design and redesign products and services, bring strategic clarity, and transform digital culture.
