Amy Cueva Heymans
Founder & Chief Experience Officer of Mad*Pow
“Nature inspires me, I feel the beauty of it and the peace being in the surroundings of nature. Nature can help me clear my mind and see things that I wouldn’t have seen before.”
Read Amy’s full profile below
What do you do every day?
I’m a co-founder of Mad*Pow and we founded this company in 2001. My role at the company is the chief experiences officer. That title given is to those who ensure that the organization has positive customer experiences. We are an experience design agency, so it’s our mission to improve the experiences that people have with organizations, technology and each other. Basically, we leverage design and design thinking to improve the human condition and to help our clients better serve their customers. I oversee the experience design practice, and I also oversee our health practice. Over half of our work is in health because health is definitely an area where design and design thinking can help solve problems. I also assist with marketing, sales and running the business. Our organization has four executives and we run the business is basically a four headed CEO, so I'm involved in running the business as well.
Why do you love it?
The entrepreneurial path happened when my business partner and I were freelancing; it was around the time the dot com bubble burst. We had worked together at advertising companies and we teamed up on a project. That collaboration worked really well so we did another one and another and another ... Eventually, we hired our first employee in 2006 and now we’re at 60 people. For me, being an entrepreneur is great because I have a lot of ideas on how things could be done and what I want to do. I can work on those ideas while earning a living. I love the freedom and independence associated with entrepreneurship. I did go to art school and focus on design, but I was the only art student who also took calculus classes as well that’s because I love being analytical and being creative.
When I came in to experience design I really felt at home because it is a blend of creativity while analyzing problems and being creative about solutions. Designers by their nature are emphatic individuals; we see a problem or somebody who is in need of support and want to help them and make things better. So for us, when we started getting involved in health, as a designer we could be somebody who saves lives or improves the quality of somebody’s life. The work we do really helps people get the information that they need. So that really makes me want to get out of bed in the mornings to use design to really help people and even save lives.
What were your moments of fear and challenges in your career?
I heard a quote that ‘only the paranoid survive,’ which really is a healthy amount of paranoia and fear, but not crippling. Crippling fear is not healthy or constructive, but I feel like a healthy amount of fear can be motivational. For me, that fear was the financial crisis of 2009 and most of our clients, which are big companies that froze their budgets. That was pretty scary. We had layoffs for the first time and we weren't sure what was ahead. Fortunately, we ended up hiring back all of our employees within 3-4 months, so we bounced back pretty quickly. But, you know there's always managing the unknown and I think being an entrepreneur you have to be able to deal with fear and take risks because you never know everything and you have to follow ahead and there’s never a shortage of challenges. Once you get through one challenge it's on to the next challenge and they just keep coming. With that said, as an entrepreneur you also have to be aware of your blind spots and so instead of trying to compensate for them, you can find or hire somebody who has the knowledge or who has the skill set to compensate for those blind spots. So many entrepreneurs are self-taught and that's great, but at some point you need to compensate for a blind spot or put a plan in place to get around that fear or challenge.
What are some of the latest innovations in science that you are most excited about?
At our firm we have a behavior change discipline and I think we’re the only design firm that has a behavior change discipline. What that means is that we are looking into the overlap of design, technology, and psychology and putting those things together to explore how we can help people change their behavior. Basically, Americans are trying to be healthier and save more money. To address those issues, we’re doing a lot in the health and the financial area; we’re helping people to lose weight, eat better, increase activity level, manage their ambition, remember to take their medication, look at their mood, their stress...all of this. In the financial world, we’re helping people to change their saving behavior, so I really think that this is the area where we can truly start to improve the human condition. If we come up with tried and true tools and methods to help people change their behavior the opportunities are endless especially at becoming better at prescribing improvements. For example, when we have developed more clinically proven health outcomes, it might get to the point where your doctor might prescribe your medication or they might prescribe you an app or both. These are the types of issues that we are trying to find solutions that can help people change their behavior in a meaningful way and impact their life.
Where did you grow up?
Burlington, Massachusetts--a suburb west of Boston.
Who was your favorite teacher and why?
I had a design professor in college, Professor Alex White, and he challenged the students to the point where many of them did not like him, but he challenged everybody. He pushed us to work, he expected the best and so he got the best. I became aware of what I was capable of because he challenged me so much.
What is your unique talent?
I belly dance just for fun! It’s more like an hobby than an aspiration. I've been doing it for 5 or 6 years and I really enjoy it. I do it once a week and I have an upcoming show that I'm preparing for and I'm really excited about it!
What is your favorite website or fun activity?
I love to travel and I like chocolate a lot; Caffeine, chocolate and traveling are my guilty pleasures. I love Paris, I love it. I studied abroad in Paris for 4 months and I've been there a few times since. I feel at home and energized there. It's a beautiful place.
Who inspires you?
Nature inspires me, I feel the beauty of it and the peace being in the surroundings of nature. Nature can help me clear my mind and see things that I wouldn’t have seen before.
I am also inspired by people who are able to be their authentic self and have direct, open and honest communication, people that know who they are and aren’t afraid to be and express that to others. Also, passion is very inspirational. People who are passionate and are following their passion really inspires me as well.
What’s next for you?
A goal I have is finding balance in my life. There are challenging times in life, but my goal is to just find peace. In terms of my business, we really want to help further the involvement of design, improving health, and to continue increase awareness around it. We founded a conference that explores the overlap of health and design and the conference is in its 4th year now. Through that conference we are able to reach and spread the message to many, many people and it keep growing and I just want to continue see that to grow.
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