For 15 years, Phil King has been proving that design should have a seat at the leadership table — carrying equal weight on strategy and prioritization responsibilities with product, business, and engineering executives. Moving up the ranks at eBay before taking the reigns as Director of User Experience and Design at Flickr, he contends that successful businesses are built on well-designed customer experiences, and that the best design leaders never let go of their roots in order to produce the best results. Having led one of the world’s largest photo enthusiast communities (with over 100 million members) through a massive and closely-watched redesign, King has a lot to say about leading a team to create products users will love. In this exclusive interview, he talks about how designers can become strong design leaders and make change at companies of all sizes.