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Alastair Simpson

VP, Design

Dropbox

Alastair Simpson is a leader and mentor, serving as VP, Design at Dropbox. In this role, he leads the talented and diverse Design team at Dropbox across Brand, Product Design, Writing, and Research. He loves working with multi-disciplinary teams to solve complex business and customer challenges. His passion --turning human centered-design inward to create the future of work— was a catalyst behind Dropbox’s innovative and unique Virtual-First approach to remote work. It also inspired the Virtual-First toolkit, which was developed to capture Dropbox lessons working Virtual First and help businesses navigate the most dramatic shift in office work, since the invention of the 40 hour work week.

Prior to Dropbox, Alastair was Head of Design at Atlassian for six years where he helped scale the design team from 20 to over 250 employees, a company from 900-5000 employees as well as through a successful IPO. He’s also worked with other large brands, start-ups and scale-ups across the U.S., UK, Europe, Australia, and South East Asia.

Alastair earned an honors degree that spanned consumer behavior, psychology, business studies, marketing and sport sciences from Brunel University, London. Alastair is a father, currently living in the Bay Area with his partner and two young kids, Frankie and Buddy, ages 7 and 4, who are a daily source of inspiration, pride and learning. He’s also quite proud of his ever-growing sneaker collection.

Building a Culture of Craft

In this talk, Alastair will share the cultural transformation within his team over the past year. He’ll discuss how a movement focused on elevating craft and quality has reshaped their approach to design. Alastair will share the highs and lows of the journey, highlighting the creative solutions that propelled them forward. Through practical insights and real-life examples, you’ll see how the team’s dedication to craft has made a tangible difference in Dropbox’s products.