Reeta Junankar and Lauren Kelly join This Place leadership
Global design consultancy This Place has strengthened its leadership team with appointments in its London and Hong Kong offices. Reeta Junankar takes on the role of Chief Strategy Officer, while Lauren Kelly has been appointed as Experience Design Director.
Founded in 2012, London-based design consultancy This Place has since grown to hold studios in Seattle, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and has a team which works across multiple time zones to provide global expertise. This Place counts brands like T-Mobile, Ahold Delhaize, Dairy Farm, and Woolworths Australia among its clients, and collaborates with global brands to build improved digital experiences and address the changing needs of customers in new and imaginative ways.
As the design consultancy looks to move into a new phase of growth, the company has announced two new hires to its leadership team. From the firm’s Hong Kong wing, Reeta Junankar has been promoted as Chief Strategy Officer, while Lauren Kelly joins the firm’s London office from EE as Experience Design Director.
As the Chief Strategy Officer, Junankar will lead efforts across the global studios in London, Hong Kong and Seattle. Prior to joining This Place in 2018, she spent several years in management consulting at Javelin Group, part of Accenture Strategy, advising global retailers and brands on customer experience transformation. During her 17-year career, Junankar has worked at the intersection of strategy and design across creative agencies, global brands and early-stage start-ups, founding ecommerce and digital marketing capabilities as well as designing transformative, award-winning digital products and services.
Junankar commented, “What particularly appealed to me about This Place is the agency’s global presence. Working with blue-chip clients and teams across all territories, I’m looking forward to bringing a truly global perspective to every idea, every project and every client… This Place is in a prime position, combining human-centred design backed by pragmatic strategic insight under one roof, bringing together a stellar team from leading creative agencies, management consulting and retail, and I am thrilled to head up the strategic arm of the business.”
Kelly brings seven years of experience to her role leading the Experience Design team, and will work across all client accounts to help them build high-value relationships with customers. She boasts a wealth of experience in UI, UX, service design and product design, having enriched her skillset most recently as Senior UX Design Manager with telecom company EE. She also spent time as a Global Experience Design Director with Wipro, following a year as Lead UX/Product Designer with Chelsea Football Club.
Kelly remarked, “What attracted me to this role is all the amazing and talented people at This Place. They come from some of the best and most established companies in the world and have been exposed to many different processes, methods and techniques, so the team is constantly looking at how to leverage that and take the best parts of all of our knowledge. What I’m looking to add to this mix is my approach to experience design. I believe that designing experiences isn’t limited to just products and services – it’s in your decks, in your emails, in how you empower a team.”
