Farai with a bushy beard, smiling

Peace!

I'm Farai. I coach managers on people leadership, speak at conferences about managing individuals and teams, and work in design leadership at Shopify. A Zimbabwean 🇿🇼 living in Canada 🇨🇦.

Coaching

I work with new and emerging leaders around the world to increase their people leadership skillset and develop effective, inclusive practices that make them better at people stuff.


Ready to get Good at people stuff?
Book a coaching call with me →

Speaking

I speak around the world and online. These days I'm focussed on talking about working effectively in multicultural teams. If you’d like me to speak at a public or private event, catch me on farai (at) pixelup.co.za.


Video of my talk at Leading Design 2019 (New York)



Past events I've spoken at

2021

2020

2019

  • Leading Design - London
    Cultural bias in design(ers) - Talk
    Nov 6, 2019 — London, UK
  • CanUX
    Cultural bias in design(ers) - Talk
    Oct 30, 2019 — Ottawa, Canada
  • An Event Apart
    Working Together in Diverse Teams
    Oct 28, 2019 — Denver, USA
  • Leading Design - New York
    The only one of your kind in the room: Perils and opportunities.
    Jun 19, 2019 — New York, USA
  • UXLx
    Talk + Workshop
    May 21, 2019 — Lisbon, Portugal

2018

  • World Interaction Design Day 2018
    Our team is diverse. Now what?
    Sep 25, 2018 — Toronto, Canada
  • Fluxible
    Cultural bias in design(ers)
    Sep 22, 2018 — Waterloo, Canada
  • UX Australia
    Keynote
    Aug 31, 2018 — Melbourne, Australia
  • UX Week
    Diverse teams: Working together across cultures - Workshop
    Aug 24, 2018 — San Francisco, USA
  • Design & Content Conference
    Cultural bias in design(ers)
    Jul 27, 2018 — Vancouver, Canada
  • Automattic People Series
    Bias in multicultural teams
    Apr 17, 2018 — Remote
  • IA Summit
    Cultural bias in design(ers)
    Mar 25, 2018 — Chicago, USA
  • Pixel Up!
    Cultural bias in design(ers)
    Mar 12, 2018 — Johannesburg, South Africa
  • Interaction 18
    Cultural bias in design(ers)
    Feb 8, 2018 — Lyon, France

2017

  • DVT Insights
    Design in Enterprise is Difficult in South Africa
    Oct 25, 2017 — Johannesburg, South Africa
  • EOH Connect 2017
    Design value and digital business
    Mar 5, 2017 — Johannesburg, South Africa

2016

Organising Conferences

I founded and ❤️ organising Pixel Up! a UX and design conference. These events exist to help bridge the gap between designers and developers in Africa with those from around the world.

Design leadership

I hang with the Shopify Balance UX leadership team at Shopify, where we’re building next-generation ecommerce tools that make commerce easier for everyone. In a past life, in South Africa, I led the experience design team at Standard Bank Group, Africa's largest bank.

Peace!

Catch me on @heyfarai or farai {at} pixelup.co.za.