About

Janaki Kumar is a seasoned design leader and Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase & Co., where she holds the position of Chief Design Officer for Commercial Banking. With over 32 years of relevant experience, Janaki is a thought leader in design-led innovation in the enterprise, committed to delivering award-winning products and services that help businesses transform the way they work. Janaki is a proven leader in building, coaching, and inspiring high-performance design teams, leveraging design thinking, customer empathy, and co-innovation. She has led teams at SAP, where she held the position of VP, Design Evangelist, Office of the Chief Design Officer, and VP, Head of Design and Co-Innovation Center, America. At SAP, she led a team of user experience professionals at the Design and Co-Innovation Center, responsible for applying design thinking to create innovative designs for customers. Janaki is an active writer and speaker on innovation and design, with a passion for sharing her knowledge and expertise. She is the co-author of Gamification at Work – Designing Engaging Business Software and has guest-lectured at Stanford d.school, Carnegie Mellon University, and San Jose State University. She is also a co-instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School Business LEAD course on Customer Experience Design: A Neuroscience Perspective. Janaki’s educational background includes a Masters in Information Systems from Boston University and attendance at the Executive Leadership Program at Stanford University. She also holds a Masters in Business/Commerce, Finance from Madurai Kamaraj University and a Diploma in Computer Systems Analysis/Programming from the National Institute of Information Technology. Janaki is the inventor on over 20 patents and was named a Women of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2016. With her vast experience and knowledge in design-led innovation, Janaki is a valuable asset to any organization looking to transform their business through customer-centric design thinking.