Meet Polly D'Arcy!

Polly D’Arcy leads the product design organization at Wealthsimple, a company known for its beautiful product, forward-thinking brand, and, as is right there in the name, a relentless commitment to keeping things simple.

But as every good designer (or researcher or product person or engineer) knows: simple is freaking hard! So of course, this, Polly knows.

Polly started at Wealthsimple as a Senior Product Designer working alongside Danielle, and has grown with the company ever since, to her role now as VP of Design. She knows the brand and product inside and out and leads with strong taste; she’s also a great people leader who’s highly strategic, gives direct and honest feedback, and able to see whats around the corner.

These days, like many of us, Polly is rewriting how her team defines and scales taste in a world where everyone can ship, and more can ship than ever. We chatted with her about how she and her team are scaling simplicity.

Guest: Polly D'Arcy is the VP of Design at Wealthsimple

You can read the blog version of this episode on our Substack Dear Danielle and Dave deardanielleanddave.com

If you have questions, comments or would like to be a guest on a future episode, get in touch with us at deardanielledave@gmail.com

The music you hear in the episode are Blue Sea and In Good Hands from #Uppbeat.

Meet Ricardo Vázquez!

Ricardo Vázquez is a playful person. His infectious, optimistic energy is a hallmark of his leadership. It’s no surprise he wanted to talk to us about the role of play in creativity — and what happens to that spirit with AI in the mix always ready to give you the straight and narrow answer.

After his time at Shopify, Ricardo and Danielle worked together at Wealthsimple; more recently he’s led design teams at Dropbox and now Stripe, where his team is working on what a payments company can become beyond payments.

Guest: Ricardo Vázquez is the Head of Product Design, Money Management at Stripe.

You can read the blog version of this episode on our Substack Dear Danielle and Dave deardanielleanddave.com

If you have questions, comments or would like to be a guest on a future episode, get in touch with us at deardanielledave@gmail.com

The music you hear in the episode are Blue Sea and In Good Hands from #Uppbeat.

Meet our boss!

In this very special edition of Dear Danielle & Dave & Friends, we sit down with Matt Davey, Chief Experience Officer at 1Password, and the person who has to put up with our antics daily at work.

Matt has led the user experience team for a whopping 14 years. We are both part of the org he’s spent over a decade building alongside cycling through his many eclectic hobbies for much briefer stints, such as printmaking, radio, chocolate-making, 3D printing, biking, and surely many more. He also cohosts 1Password’s security podcast, Random but Memorable, and has his own excellent blog on design & leadership.

Recently Matt went viral on LinkedIn with the AI maturity model he developed to assess UX maturity in the age of AI (which was subsequently expanded by Jakob Nielsen - no big deal). We had a conversation with him about just that, hiring, and much more.

Guest: Matt Davey is the Chief Experience Officer @ 1Password.

You can read the blog version of this episode on our Substack Dear Danielle and Dave deardanielleanddave.substack.com

If you have questions, comments or would like to be a guest on a future episode, get in touch with us at deardanielledave@gmail.com

The music you hear in the episode are Blue Sea and In Good Hands from #Uppbeat.