When Ross Mawdsley started work as Skyscanner’s global head of design in 2022, he soon realised the scale of the challenge he faced.
“When I came in, half the design team couldn’t design,” he says. “It sounds mad, but they actually couldn’t design.”
Not only that, but brand wasn’t held in very high regard at the tech company. So Mawdsley set to work reshaping the team, bringing in new faces and developing those who got what he was trying to build.
“These people were incredibly creative, but they were just doing banners and stuff,” he says. “So it was about taking the shackles off, and showing them that design is a big part of what we do here.”
Ross Mawdsley on stage at Paradigms
He was joined a few months later by Carla Sandhu, now Skyscanner’s global head of design ops, and together the pair redesigned the brand team’s org structure, focusing on skillsets and ensuring the team worked on the most interesting briefs (which had previously often been outsourced).
But they also set about building a new design culture.
It started, Mawdsley says, with getting everyone on the same page, and feeling a sense of ownership over the tech company’s brand.
Skyscanner has about 1,500 employees, about a tenth of its competitors like Expedia and Booking.com. The brand team is only about 40 people, with ten full-time designers and seven producers.
“We’re a challenger brand compared to others, so we have a bit of an ‘us against them’ attitude,” Mawdsley says. “I think that’s rubbed off into the whole department, in a way that everyone feels this ownership.
“It’s our brand – we built it together. And everyone feels like they are propelling it forward, which I think makes a huge difference.”
Another part of building that sense of ownership is to make sure people across the team feel empowered.
“Autonomy is a big thing in our team,” Sandhu explains. “We allow people the space to make mistakes and to grow, but we are always there to support.
“I’ve got enough experience to know that if you give people a target, and you leave them to it, they’ll probably get there. And it might not be the way you would do it, but that’s ok.”
Carla Sandhu on stage at Paradigms
Mawdsley agrees this is a crucial plank in their culture. “We’re empowering different people, at all levels, to lead projects,” he says. “And so they don’t feel they’re just part of a production line.”
The tension, Sandhu and Mawdsley admit, sometimes comes around questions of “taste and personal preference.”
“That’s the hardest bit, because ultimately, someone does have to sign it off,” Mawdsley says. “There’s subjectivity in what is my taste, as opposed to what is right for Skyscanner.
“People who come from the agency world, like I did, are used to being taste-makers. But we have to try and take away our taste, and apply it to the brand that we’re trying to build.”
Sandu agrees. “Subjectivity doesn’t really scale that well,” she says. “Every year we’re doing more, and we can’t control every tiny thing that goes out.”
Some Skyscanner brand work overseen by Ross Mawdsley and Carla Sandhu
Unlike some leaders, neither Sandhu nor Mawdsley are big believers in rituals to bring their team together.
“The fun part is the work,” Sandhu says. “The bonding experience is that we’re all on this project together, rather than we do an icebreaker every morning, or we go to the pub every Thursday.”
Interestingly despite all the talk about change across the design industry, both also believe that while many of the challenges feel new, the core role of design leaders remains consistent.
“What I’m steering the team through, that’s changing, but the principles of leadership are the same,” Sandhu says. Transparency, for example, is key, especially as Skyscanner – like every company – grapples with how to use AI.
“We are challenged with finding AI solutions versus hiring more people,” Sandhu says. “So we’re not replacing roles, but we’re not going to add new heads in. And I think we’re at a point in time right now where we don’t really know if AI is actually going to deliver all these wonderful solutions that allow us to scale.”
Some Skyscanner brand work overseen by Ross Mawdsley and Carla Sandhu
That willingness to embrace and acknowledge uncertainty feels like a common characteristic in this generation of design leaders. And that’s perhaps in contrast to some of those who came before.
“Just because you’re the leader, doesn’t mean you’re the expert,” Mawdsley says. “I’ve come across many people in my career who led in that way. And you become indoctrinated into thinking that’s what leaders look like.
“Then when you step out of it, you suddenly go, ‘Christ, that was 20 years of being absolutely hammered.’ And that didn’t get the best out of me, because I was doing things out of fear, not through wanting to make the design work better.”
Some Skyscanner brand work overseen by Ross Mawdsley and Carla Sandhu
Good leadership, he says, is about empathy, respect and trust.
“If someone puts their faith in you, you’re going to do a better job,” he says. “You have to understand people’s nuances, when someone wants an arm around the shoulder, and when someone else wants to be pushed.
“You have to learn to read people, and not have a one-size-fits-all approach, banging your fist on the table and telling everyone, ‘This is rubbish’!”
And he says, good leaders maintain a constant sense of self-awareness, alongside a willingness to improve.
“You’ve got to keep learning, because no-one ever tells you how to be a leader,” Mawdsley says. “Never think you’re the finished article.”
Ross Mawdsley and Carla Sandhu on stage at Paradigms
It’s particularly important, Sandhu adds, to understand how designers think, and communicate in a way that is both clear and meaningful.
“It’s about learning to speak the team’s language,” she says. “I’ve been at the coal face of difficult situations in companies, and you have to understand how to translate what’s going on in a way that resonates with creative people, without unsettling them, or taking their focus away too much.”
Another challenge is to ensure that in-house creative teams understand that other areas of the business may come at things in a very different way. This can even happen within wider design teams, Mawdsley explains.
“I run the visual design of the brand and there’s an equivalent of me who runs the product design,” he says. “They come from a CX angle, with a very right brain, scientific approach. Whereas I come from a left brain, very fluid, very creative starting point.
“We want the same things, but we come at things from very different angles. Their ideas are backed by science and data, while our team can be like, ‘Go out and watch a film, or take a walk in the park, you might get an idea.”
And, Sandhu explains, this culture clash can also be felt across the wider company, which is dominated by software engineers.
“They work iteratively, as product people do, so it’s good to spend time talking to other leaders about how we set up our team, and help them understand why it is the way it is.
“You are never going to find your place in the culture, or have a culturally relevant brand, doing user research, and that’s ok,” she laughs. “We can respect each other’s differences.”
Some Skyscanner brand work overseen by Ross Mawdsley and Carla Sandhu
Some Skyscanner brand work overseen by Ross Mawdsley and Carla Sandhu
Some Skyscanner brand work overseen by Ross Mawdsley and Carla Sandhu