Meet our 2026 speakers
Here are the bold, inspiring leaders you'll be learning from
Pete Kowalczyk
GDS
Pete Kowalczyk is an award-winning writer and designer working in the GDS AI Studio.
His work spans narrative, data, character and systems design, helping invent new interaction models for emerging technology.
He’s a London Library Emerging Writer for 2025-26 and was named one of the UK’s top 10 Conversational AI practitioners (2026).
Felicia Wu
TERADATA
Felicia is a senior content and design leader with 8+ years of experience managing content designers.
For over 15 years, she's been at the forefront of product innovation, crafting content strategies and design solutions that transform how enterprises speak to their customers, leading teams at Meta, Teradata, Clover Network, and [24]7.ai.
Tim Hetland
Timothy is a senior manager at Google, where he leads content design, model-behavior design, and agentic UX in Cloud.
He’s been working in design and content strategy since 2010, founding startups, building content design practices, and leading multidisciplinary UX teams. Before moving to tech, he received a PhD in English and taught in the humanities at various colleges and universities.
Outside of work, Timothy spends his time reading, writing, golfing, and hanging out with his two kids, wife, and dog at their home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Denise Brooks
KONEKTED CONTENT
Denise Brooks is a content strategist specializing in governance, accessibility, and neuro-inclusive design for organizations in health, wellbeing, and education.
Her current work includes content governance for a charity supporting victims of trafficking. This summer she's launching The BETA Collective podcast exploring content strategy for human flourishing, with founders and content leaders building better content that creates better humans.
She's spoken at Button Conference, Lead with Tempo, and Growing in Content, and is based in Amsterdam.
Tina Johnson-Marcel
JP MORGAN CHASE
With roots firmly tied to her early career as a newspaper journalist, Tina was most recently director, UX, App Ads at Google.
At Capital One, she was VP of design and led 75 designers (content, UX, and research) to deliver connected, end-to-end journeys that enable people to access credit, make payments, teach their teens about money, apply for a card in-store, move money seamlessly between accounts, access help when experiencing hardship, and much more.
Tina also led the conception and execution of the creative, content, and experience strategy for Capital One’s 2021 Black History Month immersive experience. The project, titled Forward, led to unprecedented design installations within five flagship Capital One Cafes in New York City, Chicago, Washington DC, and New Orleans. The effort is a successful demonstration of how an endeavour led by an experience design team can be adopted as an enduring initiative for Capital One's CSR and retail initiatives.
An unapologetic theater geek, Tina was nominated for a 2023 Tony Award as Co-Producer of the play, Fat Ham.
Torrey Podmajersky
CATBIRD
As president of Catbird Content, Torrey Podmajersky helps teams solve business and customer problems using UX and content. She has written inclusive and accessible consumer and professional experiences for Google, OfferUp, and Microsoft.
She has also written two books: Strategic Writing for UX and UX Skills for Business Strategy. Torrey takes clients, speaks, teaches, and mentors UX folks worldwide.
Ellen Gofton
JOHN LEWIS
Ellen is currently UX Writing Manager at John Lewis where she manages the tiny UX Writing Team and leads on UX content for the John Lewis brand.
She has over 18 years of content experience at places including BT, Royal Mail, Goldsmiths University and Microsoft.
Candi Williams
OUR FUTURE HEALTH
By day, Candi’s a content design leader who loves helping teams thrive, solving complex user experience challenges, and championing inclusive design.
By night, she’s a published author of four books, a tarot reader, and trained sommelier (who tends not to combine them all at once).
A self-confessed "word nerd" with a first-class degree in Linguistics, she's super passionate about the power of language and the impact it has on what people think, feel, and do (on and offline).
When she’s not flying the content design flag, you’ll probably find her deep in social advocacy work, growing her crystal collection, or whizzing up a new slow-cooked recipe.
Caroline Tecks
PAYPAL
Caroline Tecks is a content designer and user experience advocate based in Hampshire, UK. She's held a range of roles from leadership to IC at companies including Twilio, Lloyds Online Doctor and Nuffield Health. Currently, she's enjoying a pivot back to IC as a Staff Content Designer at PayPal.
She's a staunch believer in human relationships and clear communication being the keys to success, on our screens and off.
When not walking in nature talking to herself, she can be found lifting heavy things for a buzz, reading with her young daughter, watching European crime dramas with her fiancé, or cooking without a recipe.
Rachel McConnell
MIRO
Rachel McConnell is a design leader with experience working for BT, Deliveroo, Clearleft, Unilever and Flo Health. She's currently leading content design at Miro.
Over her varied career she's had many different roles – from strategy to design and ops – a true T shaped leader who understands how different disciplines operate and what their needs are.
She's the author of Why you need a content team and how to build one and Leading content design, and the founder of Tempo.
