The Moonshot Assembly: Metamorphosis of Designers to Leaders
The design industry is undergoing significant changes. In 2025, Y-Combinator highlighted that as AI makes coding easier, design-led leadership is becoming a key advantage. Designers are no longer just executing tasks—they’re being asked to lead, shape direction, and even start new ventures.
But this shift isn’t always clear. It’s full of questions and hard choices. Metamorphosis of Designers explores these in-between moments—when designers move from doing the work to leading others, dealing with doubts, trade-offs, and growing influence.
The Moonshot Assembly 2025 in London is a gathering of designers and design leaders shaped by deep, thoughtful conversations held in small mixers around the world. These sessions bring together leaders from different countries and backgrounds to reflect, exchange ideas, and build on a shared theme that captures the changing nature of design today.
The Moonshot Assembly was created out of a need for deeper conversations and more inclusive voices, something traditional conferences often miss. In large settings, quiet perspectives and nuanced leadership can get lost, and the ideas shared often feel too broad to apply in real life. But in today’s fast-changing world, shaped by rapid shifts in technology and society, it’s more important than ever to bring together diverse viewpoints that truly inspire and guide action.
Moonshot offers a fresh take on the usual conference format by creating a more inclusive and thoughtful space to learn and connect. Instead of one big stage or a few loud voices, it brings together design leaders from around the world through small, curated online mixers. Each mixer explores an important topic in design, making space for diverse views, including those that are often missed in typical events.
In mixers held around the world, design leaders came together to share their real experiences of moving from hands-on work to strategic leadership. Through these conversations, common patterns, challenges, and questions emerged. These insights have led to an engaging presentation and a detailed report that reflects the actual, lived realities of design leadership—honest, practical, and rooted in experience.
At LDF 2025, join a public session co-led by the design leaders who took part in these conversations. You’ll hear key insights shared in a clear and thought-provoking format. Everyone who attends will also get access to the full insight report to dive deeper and apply the learnings in their work.
This session is for designers stepping into bigger leadership roles, whether officially or just through the work they’re doing. If you’re starting to lead teams, influence direction, or find your role growing beyond just execution, this space is meant for you.