Rob Hamblen
Rob Hamblen is Founder of LEAP, helping CPO’s, VPs and POs design better products, faster!
Rob brings over 20 years of building and leading teams as a digital product designer. Having worked closely with big-name clients like AMEX, Adidas, Bain&Co, HSBC, McKinsey, Mercedes/AMG, Twitter and Udacity, Rob has mastered and evolved the Design Sprint methodology to advance and implement innovative solutions for his clients most vexing digital challenges. As a proven master of facilitation, rapid prototyping, and innovation strategy, Rob offers exactly the skill set and mentality you need to get the job done, faster than ever before.
The Design Sprint methodology: Rob’s Design Sprint approach provides a battle-tested recipe for rapidly solving big challenges, kicking off new products/projects, or improving existing ones. It compresses potentially months of work into a few days. Over the course of just four days, Rob will align your team around a shared future and co-create potential solutions (Days 1 &2). Construct a high fidelity digital prototype of the most desirable concept (Day 3). Test the concept with five hand-picked, real users (Day 4) to validate the team’s assumptions and assess product-market fit. Capturing accurate industry data and feedback early, before dedicating any time or resources to actually building something, ensures that cross-functional teams build the right offering for the right consumer. Originally created and used by Google Ventures to validate new startups, Rob is responsible for creating the latest version of The Design Sprint while at AJ&Smart. This adapted version is more stakeholder-friendly, requiring only 2 days of in-workshop team time!
Product Design Director, AJ&Smart (Berlin, 2017 to 2019): As leader of the B2B Sprint team, Rob was responsible for managing and evolving the end-to-end client experience and product offering, including team management, resource allocation, and client procurement. Rob also served as lead product designer and lead Sprint facilitator, developing an expertise in how best to streamline the Sprint process to produce the highest quality client experience.
Creative Director UX, IBM IX (Dubai, 2015 to 2017): At IBM, Rob managed cross-functional teams to support digital transformation and omni-channel customer experience efforts across multiple industries. Rob’s comprehensive command of Design Thinking and product design ensured that digital challenges were solved with empathy for users, without compromising core business needs.
