Mrinali is a Design Director for Ford Model E’s Safety & Security team where she’s building the vision for a future in mobility where customers feel safe and secure. Prior to joining Ford, she was part of an Innovation lab at Amazon and the IBM Cloud design team. With over 7 years of industry experience working with innovative companies across the globe, including San Francisco, Austin, Barcelona, Mumbai, and Bangalore, Mrinali has developed a deep understanding of designing user experiences that are human-centric, technically feasible, and business viable.
Past Talks
14 May 2025
Hiring today is broken—candidates are getting filtered out by AI before a human even sees their application, and hiring managers are often relying on outdated methods that don’t assess the full potential of a candidate. This discussion will tackle hiring challenges from both sides of the table:
- How candidates can stand out despite AI screening and generic recruitment pipelines.
- Why skills, mindset, and cultural fit matter more than portfolios or take-home assignments—and how hiring managers can assess them effectively.
- How hiring managers can better brief recruiters to identify the right talent, even if they aren’t design or product experts.
- How teams are using AI and hiring tech effectively without missing top candidates or introducing bias.
- Real-world hiring strategies to improve hiring outcomes for both job seekers and hiring managers.
17 May 2024
Dive into the transformative world of design-driven leadership in this enlightening talk, where the principles of design thinking become your catalyst for influential leadership. Mrinali, known for her pivotal role in crafting the Safety and Security product vision for the future of mobility at Ford, and leveraging her rich experience from the inventive environment of Amazon's devices innovation lab, will unveil how the methodologies inherent in design thinking can be artfully applied to leadership challenges. Her talk will focus on pragmatic strategies to harness your creative skills for setting compelling visions, navigating complex problems, and driving meaningful change within your team and organization.
Attendees will gain a practical understanding of how to adopt a designer's mindset to dissect problems, generate impactful solutions, and foster an environment of collaborative innovation. Whether you're leading a small team or steering a large organization, this talk will show you how to utilize design thinking to elevate your leadership approach and leave a lasting impression on your work ecosystem, equipping you with innovative tools and thought processes essential for visionary leadership.