Pamela joined SumUp in fall 2019 to head up Design – Product, Brand and User Research – with global responsibility. Since joining she has started building user research as a foundational practice for all product, marketing and design work; and laying the narrative for SumUp’s UX strategy.
Pamela has spent the last 15 years building design teams and practices in companies as diverse as Delivery Hero, HERE Technologies, Telefonica, and Yahoo!. Her work has always focused on working with emerging technologies to create meaningful products and services that have a positive impact on people’s lives. She is a passionate leader who empowers teams to finding ways to solve the right problems in ways that delight through their simplicity, effectiveness and integrity
As a design executive, Pamela has brought customer focus to innovation and agile product development practices, working in areas that include connected cars, urban mobility, video and communication services, financial services, and health care. She is currently exploring the intersection between design, research and data. She believes it is essential that designers participate deeply in building new practices that incorporate design ethics, as well as social and cultural implications in anticipating the future(s) we are creating.
Past Talks
12 October 2022
Most of the discussion and advice for work-life balance tends to focus on individual, team or company contexts. But what if other factors, like our upbringing, mattered as well? This fireside brings to the stage the career journey of Pamela Mead, an executive leader and a mother. Joining Pamela on stage will be her daughter Claire, who is at the start of her career studying Astrophysics. This is an “Ask me Anything” interview with mother and daughter, diving into the nuances of leadership decisions and the personal cost of those decisions that burden all of us and how they impact family dynamics. More interestingly, this session will give us insights into how great leadership is perceived from the child's perspective and how that influences the working model they choose.
25 May 2022
Conways law states that organizations produce software that matches the organizational structure. Therefore the structure chosen affects an organization's success in carrying out its strategy and objectives to achieve maximum performance. In this session, Pamela will discuss what the leadership at SumUp looks for when planning around the organizational structure, and how the thinking and approach have evolved in the last 3 years:
- The impact of an organizations stage of development and organizational philosophy
- Moving from product-centric to customer-centric: the Evolution of SumUp from when I joined to what it is becoming today
- Org details that can make a difference in creating cohesive impact: Brand at SumUp
24 May 2022
Friction can occur even when teams have the same intended outcome. How do you make change happen when a project seems to be tied down with weights in terms of pushing forward and the obstacles as big as everest.
This panel will provide a candid discussion with peers who will share what has worked for them for building great culture and process and why the two together are key to progress.
