We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sandra Camacho. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sandra below.

Sandra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

In 2018, I said goodbye to a stable job at Google to pursue my passion for designing for social impact.

After nearly 5 years of several experiments to “redesign” my career at Google around human-centered design and ultimately burning out, I had reached a dead end. Over the span of a nearly a decade, I witnessed the company veer away from its startup essence and toward the inevitable realities of a big company: process, structure and standardization. I had depleted my energy for an unsatisfactory payoff: feeling undervalued and underutilized across my full skill set because of my inability to “fit” into a rigid job description.

If I couldn’t find a job that fit me, then I would create my own. After much reflection and guidance from those around me, I left the “golden handcuffs” of Tech and launched my own consultancy and training business in inclusive & equitable design under the alias Sandra By Design. I never imagined that I’d become an entrepreneur, but I discovered that Google had already activated an entrepreneurial energy with me.

The following 5 years of building a values-driven business and community as a solopreneur have been both challenging and rewarding. There have been many periods of financial instability, uncertainty about the future and imposter syndrome. But there’s nothing like pursuing your dreams and doing soul fulfilling work that is in deep alignment with your values. I have no regrets and will continue persevering to make a real difference in the world.

Sandra, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have spent the past 13+ years enabling teams around the world to embrace innovation and diversity, equity and inclusion practices that drive social change forward.

I started my career at Google back in 2010. It was early in time there that I discovered human-centered design as a side project, which become the heart and soul of my career. It led me to design school 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. Ultimately, my values and health meant more to me than the prestige and salary that comes with working at Google. I took the plunge to leave this “dream” company in 2018 and carve my own path in social impact.

My dream to design for social impact came to life when I took on the alias Sandra By Design and created my own consultancy. Without realizing it, I had been laying the foundations for this work for 15 years.

For the past 5 years, I have worked with dozens of organizations across Europe and North America to boost their capacity to innovate ethically and responsibly — this means maximizing opportunities to serve more people with innovative solutions while minimizing the potential to do harm.

My values — purpose before profit, social justice, cultural humility and integrity — guide my work with my clients. I use a unique approach that brings together these values with design-led innovation practices and diversity, equity and inclusion principles.

Because a desire to “change the world” comes with real risks and unintended consequences, I ensure teams who want to “do good” are able to actualize their purpose by guiding them through progressive culture and workflow change over the long term. This translates into thoughtful enablement and activation strategies and highly personalized training and coaching programs that move people from good intentions to real impact. By leaning into ethics, accountability and social responsibility, teams can start to reduce their social harm footprint and move towards net positive social impact.

This work requires collaboration and collective activism, which is why I have built a community of practice known as the Inclusive Design Jam that brings together 400+ inclusive design and diversity, equity and inclusion practitioners. The next phase in my journey is building out a training academy — Design Changemakers — to educate people of all backgrounds on how to design for social change.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Relationship building and thought leadership.

I’m in an emerging discipline anchored in social impact, meaning that it doesn’t have direct ties to profitability. Traditional marketing and sales approaches, which are deeply rooted in norms of capitalism (i.e. work with me to boost your ROI fast!), do not align with my values-driven approach.

I learned over time that the best way to find opportunities is to build genuine relationships with people who truly care about diversity, equity and inclusion and who share my vision for social change. This means spending time in community, both participating and actively listening.

Secondly, I ventured into writing and speaking to develop my own unique point of view. I regularly started sharing my insights and ideas publicly through articles, resources and posts on LinkedIn and speaking at events and on podcasts. Over time, I was able to get in front of folks who care about this work and were looking for a strategic partner to support them.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

There have been numerous moments in my entrepreneurial journey where I’ve wanted to give up due to financial instability. Growing a values-based business during the pandemic and in the economic crisis of 2022/2023 (in Tech, where most of my clients reside) has been very difficult.

In the span of 3 years, I had projects making up 80%+ of my projected earnings that were canceled. I saw promising proposals where clients disappeared and stopped responding, leaving me with a dried up pipeline. I had to take nearly 3 months off of work due to long Covid and lost out on many opportunities.

It made me question whether my business was even viable and if my dreams of designing for social impact really aligned with the harsh realities of a capitalistic business world.

But I persevered. I refused to sacrifice my values. I continued pouring energy into the development of my own educational resources and programs, relationship building and content creation. And eventually that transformed itself into opportunities that came my way unexpectedly (thanks to some of my groundwork reaping benefits over a longer period of time). My business has now fortunately become more stable and sustainable. I’m glad that I didn’t give up!     

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sandrabydesign.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sandra.bydesign
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/sandracamacho
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sandrabydesign
• Other: https://inclusivedesignjam.com

Image Credits
Oona O’Brien (photo 1)