For 20 years, design leader Abi Jones has thrived on untangling complexity—tackling life-changing challenges by uncovering core user needs and designing elegant solutions across a range of ambitious domains, from Health AI and Voice Assistants to privacy-aware enterprise tools, Search, and beyond.
Abi enters complex spaces where new technology faces deep, often well-earned, skepticism. In healthcare, this meant overcoming clinician distrust caused by the failures of past technologies like Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) in mammography, which often reduced efficiency and failed to improve workflows. In the enterprise space, it meant building tools that provide powerful new capabilities while demonstrably respecting user data and privacy protocols. And for fiber network construction, transitioning paper-heavy systems to digital design planning and work tracking for challenging outdoor conditions. In every case, she found that building helpful products first required building trust.
For Abi, building trust always begins with deep user understanding. This means going into the spaces where people work and live to understand their core needs. By observing clinicians caring for patients, engineers designing a fiber network, or people simply trying to find what they’re looking for, she identifies the capabilities that will best help them accomplish their goals.
She builds her leadership philosophy on a deep, technical understanding of the underlying systems. And she believes that effective leaders go beyond the surface and truly grasp a technology’s strengths to know where it should—and should not—fit into a workflow.
This same passion for deep understanding extends to how she builds and leads teams. As a Co-Active trained coach, her goal is to understand what motivates each person and align that work with the team’s broader goals. To do this, she has developed her own toolkits for 1:1s and team leadership, helping individuals and teams define their priorities, especially during times of change.
Ultimately, a clear set of principles guides her work: creating focused, high-impact teams where people are satisfied and have opportunities for growth; shipping projects that make a meaningful difference; and measuring her own growth by the professional and personal growth of her team.
When she is not thinking about the future of technology, she can be found hiking in the redwoods or working on a project in her garage, whittling, woodworking, or just fixing what’s broken.