I'm Sandra Camacho (she/her). You can also call me Sandra By Design.
I left the "golden handcuffs" of Tech to pursue my dream to make real social change in the world—with and by design.
Today, I'm a design educator, consultant and strategist based in Paris, France, specializing in designing for systemic change. I'm also the founder of Design Changemakers, a gathering place for learning and co-design of liberatory futures.
Enable changemakers to live true to their values and drive meaningful change with the power of design.
"Sandra has an exceptional capacity for leading change. During her many years at Google, I observed her thrive as a leader, educator and facilitator, driving significant mindset and creative shifts in internal Google teams, large corporate clients and NGOs around the world. Her unwavering passion and proven ability to mobilize design as a vehicle for positive change make her an invaluable asset for any team looking to transform its practices and elevate its impact."
In 2010, I joined Google in the U.S. and was thrown into a lightning paced Tech environment where I had to fend for myself. Learning by doing and chasing after lofty goals became my mantras.
I soon became a swiss-army knife with a broad skillset. Consulting on digital strategy, analyzing marketing data sets, bringing digital analytics products to market, presenting at conferences, facilitating design workshops, and building learning programs — I did it all.
I discovered human-centered design as a side project in 2012, which become the heart and soul of my career. It led me to design school in Paris and an education NGO where I experimented with social design.
It also helped me hone an innate talent: enabling people to grow and develop. Over 10 years, this has translated into 250+ virtual and in-person workshops, 25+ eLearnings and numerous learning programs and communities of practice.
Google was a wild 8-year ride, sending me to 15+ countries across the world. But high pressure environments and unrelenting standards come with consequences. As I worked toward designing for good, I faced burnout and ended up in a team with a toxic culture.
My dream to design for positive change came to life when I took on the alias Sandra By Design and created my own consultancy in 2018. Without realizing it, I had been laying the foundations for this work for 15 years.
Over the years, I've learned that collective learning, community-building and activism are integral to driving positive change forward.
I fight against discrimination and bias because I've lived it as a woman of color in Tech, a Colombian immigrant in the U.S. and a "foreigner" with an accent in France. But I've also benefited from privilege as a native English speaker with 3 passports, a light-skinned individual and a former Google employee.
