Meet the Speaker — Lauren Maffeo

Lauren Maffeo is a Service Designer at Steampunk. Her session at WITSMidAtlantic is “Designing Data Governance for Data Mesh Architecture”.

• Why is speaking at WITS important to you?

Speaking at WITS gives me the chance to meet new peers in my profession and be the role model I wish I had as a young professional: A woman with a liberal arts education who thrives in tech by doing what she’s best at (writing/speaking/teaching) and learning new skills.

• What or who inspires you?

I’m inspired by those who persevere in the face of rejection and find new ways to get a “Yes” instead of accepting a “No” at face value.

• Most useful article you’ve read in the last month

I wanted to underline every other sentence in this analysis of design thinking from MIT Technology Review. It shares so many flaws of the profession that I practice and love, with advice on how to improve.

• When you were a kid what was your dream job?

I had movie star aspirations as a kid. Presenting at tech conferences isn’t quite the same, but it does scratch the itch ;)

• Tell us something about your session

A huge amount of data is created each day, but it has no value if you don’t use clean, quality data to solve tangible business needs. My session shares how to automate your data quality standards within architecture that empowers teams to manage data as products via data mesh.

• What other sessions or speakers are you most excited to see?

I can’t wait for “Beyond Empathy, Interfaces, & Lingo: The True Impacts Technologists Need To Know as They Develop & Design for Humane Tech”. As a human-centered service designer, this is the exact content that I need!

Register here to hear from Lauren and the other amazing women in tech speaking at WITS MidAtlantic.