About Tiffany Chew
Tiffany Chew is a product and design leader with 20 years of experience across Southeast Asia and Australia, currently leading UX for Cotton On Group’s e-commerce platforms across nine countries.
As former Head of Product Design at Touch ’n Go eWallet, Malaysia’s leading fintech product, she led multidisciplinary teams creating high-impact experiences balancing user needs with business goals. Her career spans enterprise SaaS, fintech, retail, entrepreneurship (building and selling a fashion brand), and design education, culminating in a Master’s in Sustainable Development Management.
As a UX career coach and speaker, she addresses the intersection of design excellence and designer wellness, advocating that ethical, impactful work requires practitioners who are mentally healthy and resourced.
Based in Melbourne, Tiffany brings perspectives from global markets and multicultural practice to building sustainable, people-first design cultures.
What is your vision on our UX industry?
The UX industry is at a critical inflection point. Since the internet was born, we’ve created incredible things, but also tremendous noise. Great user experience should require the least labor from users while securely helping them make better decisions, healthier choices, and build wealth.
Coming from Southeast Asia with 20 years of experience now based in Melbourne, I’ve seen how the industry across regions grapples with balancing business objectives with real user needs – even needs users aren’t aware of yet. We face the constant tension of balancing purpose, profit, and people.
As UX professionals understand behavioral psychology more deeply, and users become more conscious and discerning, the industry is being forced to be more honest and human-centered.
That’s when true and meaningful innovation emerges – and it isn’t a tool or framework. It’s recognizing that we can’t design ethically for users if we’re burned out ourselves. The mental wellness of designers directly impacts the quality and ethics of what we create. We can’t pour from an empty cup.
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Keynote
Tiffany Chew
The Human Cost of Human-Centered Design
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: we spend our careers advocating for users, but who’s advocating for us? Through experiencing rock bottom in both professional and personal life, I learned that you can be your own safety net.
It explores the moment things feel completely out of control and how to take power back. Through a simple framework of protecting, conserving, and acquiring your resources, whether you’re leading teams at scale or navigating your first year in UX, you’ll discover one transformative question that changes how you approach your career, your team, and your worth.
It’s about designing a career as intentionally as we design experiences – with clarity, boundaries, and the wisdom to know what’s worth fighting for.
