Our Awards Jury Knows Great UX Design

Sandra Brügmann brings extensive expertise in user-centered innovation and digital product development. As part of Intuity’s leadership team, she heads the Hamburg office and shapes impactful DX portfolios for international clients.

With a strong foundation in human factors, strategic leadership, and cross-functional collaboration, she drives forward-thinking design systems that enable meaningful digital transformation.

By working closely with R&D teams, Sandra explores AI-driven solutions that redefine human-machine interaction, helping organizations anticipate market shifts and create compelling user experiences.

With a forward-thinking mindset and a commitment to sustainable growth, she consistently delivers high-caliber digital products that resonate on a global scale.

Philipp Busse is a User Experience leader with more than 17 years of experience building and leading multidisciplinary design and research teams. With a background in design, he has worked across publishing, e-commerce and marketplace businesses, consistently shaping high-reach consumer platforms. A common thread throughout his career is the ambition to connect user needs, business strategy and technology into coherent, scalable product experiences.

Today, his focus is on the circular economy. He specializes in embedding UX at the core of product strategy, scaling high-performing teams, and delivering measurable business impact through design.

Alicia is a Senior UX Concept at Scholz & Volkmer, specializing in developing digital strategies and information architecture for leading brands.

In her role as a project lead, Alicia adeptly balances strategic vision with a keen focus on user-centric needs. She likes to improve the collaboration between different disciplines, such as design, concept, and technology, utilizing the ever-evolving tools in our industry.

With a strong foundation in classic design and smart digital systems – gained through her studies in Design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar (B.F.A.), Elisava University in Barcelona, and Hochschule RheinMain (M.A.) in Wiesbaden – she prioritizes "classic clarity and unambiguity" in user interfaces.

Her work focuses on rethinking common components with our evolving technological advancements such as AI and simplifying digital interactions, subtly modernizing systems while retaining classic structures. The goal is to make users feel comfortable amidst rapid changes and maintaining their ease of use.

Grace currently serves as Head of Design at Taskrabbit, where she leads product design, research, and content across the two-sided marketplace. She works at the intersection of responsible AI, intelligent matching systems, and scalable design frameworks — ensuring innovation drives measurable business growth while strengthening user trust and clarity.

Her leadership career spans some of the world’s most influential technology and commerce companies, including TikTok, Pinterest, Meta, Amazon, and BlackRock. She has built and scaled high-performing design organizations, launched 0→1 products to millions of users, and led monetization platforms that delivered meaningful revenue impact through structured experimentation and data-driven strategy.

Grace is deeply committed to elevating the role of design in shaping responsible AI systems and sustainable digital ecosystems — blending systems thinking, craft excellence, and strategic vision to build products that feel intelligent, human, and enduring.

Tae Young Kang is a Director of Customer Experience and a Product Lead at Deutsche Telekom with roundabout 20 years of experience in UX and service design. Currently, he focuses on streamlining and digitizing Deutsche Telekom's customer-centric innovation process, leading a team to implement a corporate-wide collaboration platform that accelerates idea collection, target customer validation, and data-driven concept prioritization.

Previously, he worked at Samsung Electronics for over 15 years, where he cultivated extensive hands-on experience in the end-to-end product innovation process – leading diverse projects from new product development to production model enhancement and shipping to global audiences, including the Galaxy Smartphone series.

Tae Young studied Service Design (M.A.) at the Royal College of Art in London and Visual Communication Design (B.A.) at HongiK University in Seoul.

Tim Kern is a design lead with more than 20 years of global experience across Europe, Asia, and the US. He is passionate about creating desirable brand and product expressions – from outdoor power equipment across sports industry and consumer electronics.

Tim combines creative vision with insightful analytical thinking, striving to turn opportunities into relevant design strategies across categories, products, and disciplines.

Alexander Livigni is Partner and senior UX/UI expert with 14+ years' experience designing B2B/B2C systems at forwerts. He enables design leadership and empowers cross-functional teams through creative direction, agile methods, and user-centered strategy. His work for brands like Audi and Deutsche Bahn reflects excellence in both execution and team-driven innovation.

Ramesh Manickam is a Senior Key Expert in Experience Design at Siemens, renowned for his profound expertise in crafting immersive experiences at the intersection of digital and industrial design. He is a driving force at the forefront of cutting-edge research in Advanced Experience Design, constantly raising the bar and pushing the limits to elevate design.

With over 28 years of experience, he meticulously shapes human-centered autonomous systems, primarily focusing on intelligent buildings, by seamlessly translating complex intelligent technologies into trustworthy, intuitive, and delightful human experiences.

An esteemed IIT Delhi, India alumnus, Ramesh is celebrated for designing the legendary Royal Enfield's iconic Thunderbird motorcycle. He further demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit by founding Centroid, a successful Design Consultancy, delivering over 450 innovative products. He also expertly scaled his startup Cozart, which was subsequently acquired by the prestigious Dalmia Group.

As a distinguished TED Fellow and recipient of multiple coveted design awards, including the Good Design Award, Ramesh's pioneering work consistently pushes the boundaries of design at the dynamic intersection of business, technology, and human experience.

Alekhya Paruchuri is a strategic leader focused on bridging the gap between complex technical ecosystems and intuitive human experiences. With a background spanning Information Technology (B.S.) and Human-Computer Interaction (M.S.), she brings a distinctive blend of technical architecture expertise and behavioral science insight.

As a Senior Design Manager at HP, Alekhya leads a global design team driving strategy and execution across Product Setup, Customer Onboarding, AI, and Print and Scan Solutions—shaping seamless, intuitive experiences for more than 50 million customers worldwide. She thrives at the intersection of Design, Development, R&D, Business, and Product Quality, balancing high-level business objectives with deeply human-centered principles.

Atike is a seasoned UX professional with nearly two decades of experience crafting human-centered experiences across telecommunications, e-commerce, automotive, and healthcare. For the past 12 years, she has brought her expertise to Philips, taking on roles as a UX designer and design director.

With a deep passion for improving lives, Atike has worked for innovation projects in the medical field, focusing on patient engagement, neuroinformatics, sleep and respiratory health, remote patient monitoring, and digital diagnostics. Her curiosity about human behavior drives her design approach, and she enjoys sharing her expertise with the community.

In her current role as lead designer at Philips Experience Design, she is committed to fostering a strong design review culture, empowering teams to create high-quality, inclusive and safe healthcare solutions.

Atike holds an MSc in Digital Media from Bremen University, Germany, and an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) in User System Interaction from Eindhoven University, Netherlands.