Sunetra Majumdar
A passionate product design leader with an expertise in strategic thinking, service design, user research and UX.
Currently a Design Director in IBM heading the Design Craft pillar in iX Design India. Have an experience spanning over 20+ years in various industries and domains.
My Design Journey
Architect + Designer
Earned an architectural bachelors and design masters degree from premier institutes in India. Worked as an Industrial, Graphic and Web Designer.
Information Architect
Worked on US Healthcare portal. Gained experience in enterprise application design and health insurance.
Sr. Human Factors Specialist
Involved in UX research, UX audits and website design. Developed a gamification strategy for employee excellence.
Sr. Design Consultant
Focused on mobile application and web responsive design. Mentored and managed 3 design resources.
Design Manager
Led accounts for hospitality, financial and e-commerce. Guided a team of 16 UX/UI designers, drove hiring and process.
Design Director
Head of Craft for iX India Design Team. Led digital transformation projects, guiding 53 designers directly and through reporting chain.
My Design Principles
In any design engagement that I start with, I keep these 3 basic design principles as a constant reminder.
Curious & Investigative
A curious and investigative mindset helps a designer to uncover the real problem rather than focus on superficial and tactical ones.
Collaborative
To build a robust and effective impactful design, designers need to collaborate with business and tech teams and also work hand-in-hand with the users.
Strive for Simplicity
Simplest solution to a problem is often the most difficult one but always the best one. Strive to create simple, usable and joyful solutions.
My Leadership Principles
In my journey as a design leader, I have had immense learning not only from senior leaders but also from my team members.
Know your Team
A leader’s greatest strength lies in knowing his team really well. Being approachable so they can disclose their strengths and aspirations.
Build on Strengths
I believe on building on the strengths of my team. Each member brings a unique proposition — a smart leader identifies and leverages that.
Be Open and Assertive
These two traits are very helpful in building a collaborative and focussed team, built on trust and free of ambiguity.
My Process
Uncover the real problem statement
This is team effort of Product Owner, Business Analyst and Designer. Uncovered by taking a micro and macro view of the landscape.
Look around inside & outside
Competitive Analysis, user research are usually done by designers, looking for cues or assets to be leveraged.
Start ideating and socialising
Design can no longer work in a silo. The right stakeholder included at each stage helps build on the initial designs.
Firm up the solution
Detailed design stage — validating component usage, data sets, APIs, error scenarios and edge cases.
Guide, support the team in execution
Agile and vigilant for queries, development concerns, design changes, and ensuring design QA throughout.
Achievements
- Technical Recognition in IBM Tech 2024, Dubai
- Guest speaker in Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (2024)
- Keynote speaker in the Design Degree Show, IIT, Delhi (2023)
- Spark Award 1H 2021 (IBM)
- Winning Team for iXponential Design Hackathon, IBM (2020)
- Eminence and Excellence Spark Award, 2019 (IBM)
- Great People Manager - 2018 (Publicis Sapient)
- Leadership Spotlight Award - 2017 (Publicis Sapient)