The pandemic left us all stranded and isolated; going through the motions of our lives without the daily moments of connection and collaboration we’d come to rely on. For the Content Design team at Zalando, this meant a sudden spotlight on the way they had been working: siloed at the end of the design process, yearning for a seat at the table.

For Chad Wright and Samantha Weingarten, Principal and Manager Content-Design-duo, the pandemic came with individual challenges. For Chad, it was navigating the imposterism around what it meant to be the first and sole Principal Content Designer at Zalando – from his bedroom. For Sam, it was learning what it meant to be an expat, a new mother, and Content Design Manager whilst living in rural Germany.

In this talk, you’ll learn about how they worked hand-in-hand, building on both their strengths and vulnerabilities, to define what collaboration between different kinds of leadership could look like at the end of the world (as we know it), and how together they launched a whole new way of working for their team– without ever meeting in person.

With a background in English and Media & Communications, Sam is currently managing Zalando’s growing Content Design team. Previously, she worked as a Content Strategist and Content Designer for Shopify, Facebook, and Intercom. She is a huge psychology nerd and allergic to bad UX (and cats).

Chad Wright is a Creative Director turned Principal Content Designer. He’s passionate about empathetic mentorship, creating tools that uplift the design discipline and using language systems to solve user problems. He’s also known to do a mean rendition of “wrecking ball”.