Kaitlin King Del Riego

Hi, I’m Kaitlin (call me Kait or KK)! I am a connector-of-the-dots, research leader, and adventurer.

I have gone by many titles and worn many hats in my career, but today I primarily work in the disciplines of behavioural design and user research— with a scoop of innovation strategy on the side. My educational background is in anthropology, visual arts, and most recently, behavioural science (and because I earned the latter degree in the UK, I have an aversion to the American English spelling of “behavioral" without that beautiful u!). I’ve practiced Human-Centered Design in many of its expressions: for organizations, services, digital experiences, and products. I have worked my entire career with technology companies and technology start-ups all over the world.

Today, I am a Senior Innovation Insights Manager at LinkedIn. I also teach Design Thinking, Entrepreneurship and Behavioural Design classes for various institutions in Latin America.

Para leer en español, haz clic aquí.

What do I do as a Behavioural Designer?

• For me, Behavioural Design = behavioural sciences principles + design thinking process. It’s about backing the iterative, creative design cycle with rigorous experimentation to understand the user’s decision making environment(s). Behavioural Design can be applied to any context, physical or digital, where a there is a decision to be made and an action to be taken.

• I get involved in every stage of the development lifecycle— from exploratory research, to prototype conceptualization, to implementation—often leaning in particularly heavily in the initial research phase. I ensure that decisions along the way are consistently aligned with user needs and business goals.

• I champion user-centred design mindsets and behavioural science wisdom with evolving companies, marketing and design teams, and entrepreneurs through workshops, guest speaking, coaching, and consultancy projects.

Here are some of the things I’ve co-created as a Behavioural Designer:

DESIGN STRATEGY

• Help and Support strategy for all of LinkedIn.com, focused on designing for a self-serve first model, including an AI-empowered chat bot. | LINKEDIN, technology

• Digital strategy, high-level online product designs, and technical infrastructure preparation for personal finance offerings. | NACIONAL MONTE DE PIEDAD, finance

• Audited patient and physician experience for 2 large PPP hospitals in Mexico, making recommendations and uncovering unmet user needs. | MARHNOS HOSPITALS, health

Academically, my Behavioural Science master’s dissertation at the London School of Economics examined the effects of Covid-19 on the mental health of working women and mothers in the UK, analysing the national household panel dataset with over 800,000 data points spanning 10 years.

Aside from those projects, I’m pretty proud of these 3 accomplishments in innovation:

1. With sponsorship from Facebook’s Innovation Lab, I launched and curated the first Zebra Movement conference in Mexico City in 2018, in order to foster a discussion about circular economics, impact investment, and sustainable business practices in the locatart-up ecosystem.

2. I pitched, created, and marketed the first-ever music Hackathon in Mexico with Universal Music Group, the largest record label in the world. 100 talented technologists and music lovers got to experiment with the most innovative products in the music business to pitch business ideas to UMG executives.

3. I’ve coached over 150 incredible Latin American entrepreneurs and start-up founders in their journeys of business creation, connecting them to investors, strategic corporate partners, and mentors. The cliché is true: I learned much more than I taught. I’m thrilled that so many mentees are running successful companies of their own, fostering development in the region and making a difference in their communities.

I am also a semi-failed entrepreneur.

Among the failed ventures have been Talent Ninja (2015), a social enterprise to empower young, technical talent in Latin America in their job search, and Yoga Soule (2015-2017), a wellness retreat company and yoga studio in the Italian Riviera. Some elements of each of these live on: I still mentor young folks finding their footing in the tech world, and I still teach yoga at other people’s studios and online.

My biggest entrepreneurial success is Monett Studio, the innovation and design agency I founded in 2016 that is very alive and very well. And, it was a pretty big deal for my 10-year old self when my first business made me enough money to buy rollerblades (thank you to all my family who very generously purchased my handmade trinkets that made that possible!).

My working style

• I enjoy uncovering the “what” and “how” after first being gounded in a purpose-centred “why.” I guide my teams with this ethos in mind.

• I am more skilled at starting from scratch and/or scaling than maintaining. I love the challenge of a blank slate, I organize my work around hypotheses to prove/disprove, and I build solutions iteratively.

• Since I’ve spent most of my career in resource-strapped environments, I have mastered scrappy, DIY, and doing a lot with a little. I am a fan of old school paper and pen.

• After living and working across multiple languages, countries, industries, and roles, I am highly adaptable, learn quickly, and just truly enjoy people and all of our diversity.

• My leadership adage centres around calling others to greatness (thanks Cy Wakeman).

You made it, you read the whole page! Feel free to navigate to my portfolio for more detailed info about past projects (note: the portfolio is password protected for client privacy).