Mastering UX & Product Management Collaboration
How UX and Product Teams Work Better - Together
You’ve been in that meeting. The one where design and product are technically working toward the same goal but somehow speaking completely different languages. Where the research gets nodded at and ignored. Where the roadmap moves without the designer in the room.
It doesn’t have to be that way, and five people who’ve actually figured out how to bridge that gap are coming together to show you how.
📅 The Details
Thursday, March 5 · 6:00–9:00 PM EST Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza 1 Veterans Pl, Silver Spring, MD
Who’s in the Room
These aren’t panel speakers reading from slides. These are practitioners who have spent years, in some cases decades, working inside the friction between design and product, and building real solutions to it.
Ivan Carter — Senior product designer and visual storyteller with 20+ years of experience. Ivan has seen what happens when design has a seat at the table and when it doesn’t - and he’ll tell you exactly what the difference looks like.
Leo Hoar, PhD — Former academic turned UX researcher, and founder of the UXR Institute. Leo left the ivory tower to solve a real problem: UX research that actually influences product decisions instead of sitting in a Notion doc no one reopens.
Tadinee “Tad” Marsili — 15+ years in product strategy, UX, and human-centered AI. Founder of The Cellular Experience. Tad operates at the level where design stops being a deliverable and starts being a competitive advantage.
Caitlin Cooper — Builder of user-centric digital products who leads cross-functional teams and translates vision into scalable enterprise outcomes. She knows how to get design decisions through the org. and actually shipped.
Teyibo — Product leader, founder of Analog Teams and Guardian AI, and Co-Chair of UXCON. Teyibo builds at the intersection of systems thinking and human impact -and brings that lens to what it means for UX and product to truly collaborate.
What You’ll Walk Away With
Most panels leave you with food for thought. This one is built to leave you with something more concrete, frameworks, conversation, and perspective you can bring back to your team on Friday morning.
You’ll hear directly from people who’ve navigated the UX–PM divide across startups, enterprise, research, and leadership. You’ll get to ask the questions you’d never ask in a LinkedIn comment. And you’ll meet other designers, researchers, and product managers in the DMV who are wrestling with the same problems you are.
This is the kind of evening that changes how you show up at work next week.
Come Ready to Engage
This isn’t a lecture, it’s a conversation. Come with your questions, your frustrations, your real scenarios. The speakers are coming prepared to go beyond the surface, and the format gives you room to dig in.
Hosted in the DMV - open to the broader UX, product design, and product management community.
Questions? Reply drop it in the comments.