Ep. 222: Stop Disrupting, Start Caring with ustwo’s CEO Nicki Sprinz

CEO of digital experience studio, ustwo, Nicki Sprinz, was born in London and attended a convent primary school with strict rules that tended to squash curiosity - something she has had to consciously unlearn in the years since. A couple of harrowing chapters with significant health challenges presented Nicki with opportunities to learn to overcome and practice optimism. A resulting deep sense of carpe diem, has her leaning into hopefulness and making a positive impact for others. Since joining ustwo a decade ago, Nicki has risen through the ranks to become CEO, all while closing the gender pay gap, supporting a caring and collaborative workplace culture, and developing breakthrough digital experiences that solve real world problems and demonstrate genuine care for our fellow humans.

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Learn more about Nicki at Linkedin and Ustwo.

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Nicki Sprinz: you don’t need to break things. You need to pause and think about the problem for an individual and what would be the simplest solution for that

Amy Devers: Hi everyone, I’m Amy Devers and this is Clever. And today I’m talking to Nicki Sprinz, the CEO of ustwo, a global digital experience design studio headquartered in London.  As the leader of a values-driven and majority employee-owned B-Corp, Nicki is committed to ensuring that ustwo has a positive impact on both people and the planet through creating breakthrough digital experiences that are accessible and meaningful to the general public. At ustwo for for over a decade, Nicki served in roles such as Commercial Director and Group Managing Director before becoming CEO, where she spearheads the company's expansion in key sectors like healthcare, financial services, technology, automotive, and mobility. Throughout her career, Nicki has been passionate about healthcare and wellbeing. Her early work in digital health information for NHS Scotland shaped her focus on creating meaningful impact while delivering strong business outcomes. Standout projects at ustwo include developing the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy journaling app Moodnotes (in partnership with Thriveport), the fertility app Helios: Pineapp, the digital experience for The Body Coach, and leading The Cancer Platform (2025) for The Cancer Awareness Trust. In addition to her work at ustwo, Nicki co-founded Ada’s List, a global community of over 8,000 women working in tech, and serves as a Non-Executive Director for InnovateHer, a social enterprise that educates school-aged girls about STEM. Aside from her professional accomplishments, as you’ll hear, Nicki has taken a very twisty path that includes a few genuinely harrowing chapters all that has added depth, humility, hopefulness and profound wisdom to her outlook… here’s Nicki

Nicki: My name is Nicki, I’m based in London and I’m the CEO of Ustwo studios. We’re an employee owned, global Digital Product Studio and I love my job because it’s a privilege to lead talented people who want to make work that has a genuinely positive impact on the world. 

Amy: Wow, that’s a beautiful statement and it is a privilege. I’m excited to unpack all of that with you, but I’d love to start from the very beginning. Can you tell me about your formative years, your childhood, where did you grow up, your family dynamic and what kinds of things captured your imagination as a child? 

Nicki: Yeah, great, okay. I’m actually a Londoner born and bred, so I was born here. My father was an immigrant, he was born in South Africa and my mother was a daughter of immigrants, so even though I’m a Londoner, we always grew up in a very international, I guess European household, interested in culture and how other people lived. I actually went to a convent primary school, which is probably a whole other podcast conversation in itself. 

Amy: I can’t let that go though; we have to unpack that. That is so far from my experience, I need to know a little bit about that. 

Nicki: Yeah, I mean it was tough, I’ll be honest. I think it took me until I was in my 20s maybe to recognize some of the scars from that experience that needed to be healed. It was run by nuns, I would say broadly with good intentions, but with very archaic, Old Testament style of educating. We studied English, maths and religious studies primarily. And kids were hit and you were kind of punished for asking questions. I think that was the biggest thing I had to unlearn that in that environment curiosity was kind of stifled.

Amy: How unfortunate!

Nicki: Yeah, it was a real shame and obviously with things like privileges… there was a reward system of certain types of behaviors and a squashing of others. It was a difficult time but also for me, my only reference for normality, because that was where I went to school and that was what we all went through, and so then it was very different when I went to secondary school. I was at an all-girls secondary school in London. I chose it, one of the reasons I chose it actually, they had an amazing art department but also their uniform, the only compulsory thing you had to wear was a yellow shirt and broadly navy. So I loved the idea that you could turn up in a mini skirt or a long skirt or in trousers. There was some individuality within this conscripted look, so that really appealed.

Amy: So secondary school you were able to go to a place where you had a little more individuality and there was a great art program. Talk to me about what that felt like in the time? 

Nicki: I loved my secondary school. I had this extraordinary teacher called Tina Corbett who was an amazing textile teacher and I learned about screen printing and batik and developing my own photographs and just was really inspired by her as a leader and the way she taught. I also had an extraordinary history teacher. But I had a little bit of a strange secondary school experience because at the age of 13 I was very unwell, so I ended up not attending school in a normal way for a period. I was on holiday with my family, I was 13 at the time and we were in Minorca and I had a terrible headache and like most parents, my parents assumed that I had been in the sun too much and maybe it was heatstroke. But the headache got worse and the next morning I stayed indoors with my mother and was writing postcards and all I remember is I put my hand to my head. Now apparently what then followed is I fell to the floor and basically had a seizure. And the next thing I know, which is a lot later, is I woke up in intensive care and I wasn’t able to speak or move. So I had experienced something that took 14 days to actually diagnose because it’s identified through a process of elimination. I had something called viral encephalitis, which is inflammation of the brain stem. 

Amy: Nicki, how terrifying? 

Nicki: It was terrifying. I think at 13 it’s this really pivotal, developmental moment and I remember waking up, I didn’t know what had happened and I knew my brain was saying mum, mummy, probably mummy in that kind of moment, what’s happened to me, where am I? And I couldn’t say anything. It’s such a long time ago, I’ve got flickers of memories of nurses in pink scrubs, being in intensive care, people speaking in hushed tones around me, obviously they were speaking in Spanish, we weren’t at home. And then I was flown back to London to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, woke up on a ward with people much older than me at the time, it turned out it was a ward for people who had neurological issues, quite a few of them had cancer, they thought maybe I had a tumor. And I had a series… as I said, it was a diagnosis through elimination of other things. I had CAT scans and MRI scans and a lumbar puncture, which I did not enjoy.

Amy: Oh, I’ve had one of those, it’s awful!

Nicki: Yeah, really awful, you know you’re small, the size of that needle that’s going in to get spinal fluid. And what else… I had an angiogram where they were able to send dye up, which I was able to watch, into my brain, to look at what was happening. And at this point I was regaining my speech, so I was able to answer questions and ask about what was going on. And my mum reminds me, maybe this reveals what kind of teenager I was, apparently when I woke up in one of the wards they were trying to check how my cognitive function was working and so they said, ‘who is top of the charts?’ And my mum said, “She’s not going to know who is number one, ask her who the prime minister is and who the president is.” (Laughter) So I was able to kind of say, “It’s Clinton,” and this is what’s happening here. I was really interested in politics. I learned so slowly. I learned how to walk again. I was on anticonvulsant drugs for a year, so that’s kind of don’t operate heavy machinery and I had really bad headaches. And essentially I made what they call a ‘95% recovery,’ which is amazing. And so all I’m left with is [0.10.00] on my left side, because I’m left handed and it was the left side of me that was paralyzed, I have hand tremor that is very mild, but exacerbated if I’m tired, and that can be mental or physical strain. And then the other thing is that sometimes I get my words backwards. When I was pregnant, of course pregnancy is parasitic, this amazing fetus is growing inside you and drawing all the good nutrients and all the things, rightly, so it meant that I was very physically drained. I’ve had two pregnancies; in both those circumstances it was very extreme. I’d be sitting in a room, I could be looking at you and I know your name is Amy, but I’ve just been thinking I want to tell you a story about so-and-so, let’s say Sarah. So I’d be looking at you right on and I’d say, “Sarah,” or I would get words backwards. But that’s it, so basically day-to-day, it really barely affects me. Don’t serve me tomato soup on your white carpet in case the spoon shakes. And I don’t ride a bicycle because I’ve fallen off those a few times. 

Amy: Well, I mean this is really an interesting story that I’m sure has impacted your life in multiple ways. Now that you work crafting healthcare experiences with the user in mind, you have this intimate experience where you’ve been through the fear and uncertainty and at the mercy of people who are caring for you and you can understand at a very intimate, vulnerable level what a user might need in those situations. It’s really interesting. I do want to just empathize with you on the anticonvulsants, I also had seizures after a head injury and spent my high school years on some drugs that just made me a zombie. It’s weird, it’s a weird way to go through life and so sorry, sorry that that happened to you. But you’re in such a healthy place now, I mean pregnancies sounded pretty difficult, but also what, I guess, really triumphant, wonderful thing to be able to make a 95% recovery, I mean wow. 

Nicki: Totally. I think when I was reflecting on it a few years ago, I think 95% in any other life circumstance is fantastic. I do think it’s fueled so much of my outlook on life, I mean it took me some time to get there. I am very carpe diem, you really never know what’s around the corner and so you really need to embrace living in the moment. And sometimes, certainly in my early 20s, I pushed the boundaries of that, I think, too far. Perhaps as a teenager I’d felt like my body let me down, so I was interested in how far could I push my body in taking a lot of risks. At one point when I was travelling in Chile and Bolivia, I got a misdiagnosis about something and blood tests revealed… it said something, you’ve got cancer, and I remember thinking, no way am I going home. If it’s all over now, I’m hitchhiking through the jungle, I’m going down this crazy… there’s a famous road in Bolivia that’s quite dangerous to cycle down and adrenaline junkies like to do it. And knowing that I can’t ride a bike very safely, I’m first in the line to go down that crazy hill. So there are parts of me that perhaps sometimes have been really ready to jump into that risk, but it all comes from a place of really believing life is really short and I’m really lucky to be able to sit here and tell the tale and do so with a smile on my face. And so I think you have to really embrace it for all it is, the ups and downs. 

Amy: Yeah, what a great perspective, but also so glad you didn’t accidentally kill yourself when you thought you were going to die another way. (Laughs)

Nicki: (Laughs) Yeah, it’s true, it’s true, I ended up having something else which is called… it wasn’t cancer, it was something called Graves’ disease, which is an autoimmune disease, which meant that at 21 they removed my thyroid, which again, and this is what I mean about my self-destructive streak. I think I got that diagnosis at 21 and I thought this cannot be happening. I’ve only lived 21 years of my life and I’ve already ended up with two conditions, one of the nervous system, one of the endocrine system. But I think the other way of looking at that is just how lucky I am to come out the other side of that. And to do so, hopefully, most of the time, with humor, most of the time. 

Amy: Well, thank you for saying ‘most of the time’ and yes, I can see that you’re lucky, but I also know that it’s a choice to be able to adopt that perspective, it could be that someone might focus on the injustice of it or the trauma that’s left behind and that doesn’t seem like your way. I’m hearing a kind of natural optimism in you, would you describe yourself as an optimist? 

Nicki: Yeah. Definitely, definitely an optimist. But I think you’re right to acknowledge and maybe I brush past it a little bit too quickly. That’s not to say that there wasn’t that period as I say when I turned 21 where I was in intensive care again, I was recovering, where there was definitely a period of woe is me, how has this happened again. But I think instinctively I’m an optimist. I think you have to be hopeful. I think in the job that I do, when you’ve got economic turbulence or downturns in cycles, you have to be hopeful if you’re going to be talking to clients about opportunities or you’re going to be chasing new business or you’ve just lost a pitch but you’ve got to rally the team to go at it next week for something else. You have to have a kind of hopeful outlook, otherwise it’s really hard work. 

Amy: Yeah, hopefulness, is that an ability that you have to train and flex, like any other ability? 

Nicki: Yes, I think it’s a muscle, I think it’s a muscle that you have to pay attention to. We’re in a really fragile geopolitical situation, but we have to maintain a sense of hope that things will get better. So I think it is important to pay attention to hopefulness and where one can to kind of feed it or nurture it. 

Amy: Yeah, thank you for that, I agree with you and I think that that is going to be a key area of focus, a key survival method, a key coping mechanism, as we move through all this, is actually training our perspective on finding the hopeful in every situation.

Nicki: Yeah. 

Amy: You took a very circuitous route to where you are now and I find that so fascinating and it starts with studying history at Oxford. Can you talk to me about your college years and then your first few chapters of your career trajectory?

Nicki: Yeah, I mean first I should say I’m not a planner as a person. I’m an optimist and I’m hopeful, but I’m not a planner and I think there are some people who have extraordinary skills. They do annual goals, they’ve got five year goals, they know where they want to be and that’s not me. And maybe that ties or corresponds very neatly too…

Amy: Oh god, it’s not me either, I’m so glad to hear that, I’ve always felt completely deficient in the goal setting planning department…

Nicki: Totally and the only bit I could explain and maybe it ties to is my ‘live in the moment’ attitude to life and wanting to enjoy things spontaneously. I really, as I said, I really enjoyed art, I thought about going to art college, but I also really found history inspiring and just by way of timing of the applications, I applied to Oxford first and I was accepted. I say that a degree in history from Oxford is a degree in eloquent bullshit and by which I mean, forgive me for my coarse language, it was a real shock to my system. I hadn’t produced two essays a week, I’d never done that before. I’d never been given a reading list of journals and books and then just been told to be back there a week later with a point of view. It was really challenging at first, but I think it taught me the ability to process quite a lot of information and synthesize that in a summary and an argument and then to construct an argument, wow, because the way the tutorial system there works is you’ll have often a tutorial partner and the two of you will have submitted your essay the night or day before. And then you have to read it out or discuss it with a tutor. Often with the expert, two of their books were on the reading list and you’re debating with this extraordinary mind and your tutorial partner. 

And on a good day it’s a really interesting discussion and you feel quite proud of yourself and on a bad day you’re somewhat ripped to shreds. So there’s a robustness, I think, that it teaches you. It’s also alien. there were moments where you’re sort of having chips by a kebab van at 2:00 in the morning in a ball gown. Or you’re punting down a river and all those things feed into the notion of the spires and what settings you like. Or when you dress up, to do your end of year mods, they’re called ‘moderation exams’ and then your finals you wear this funny little uniform which is basically black, skirt or trousers, white shirt, a little black ribbon and your gown to sit your exams. So there are oddities, but at the same time it’s also like any other university where you just meet lots of like-minded people and I did a little bit of costume designing and then I really got into the student paper, and ended up being the deputy editor there for a while. And I think the big thing I learned from that period is that it’s all about team work, there is no ‘I.’ Yeah, you might be chasing a byline and whatever, but actually it’s people working together, which is definitely something that shows up in my day-to-day life. And then I was supposed to go back to your overarching question around my meandering career path. 

I was really interested in journalist and I did that for a little bit. And then partly my health, maybe partly because I’d grown up in London, was always there, I felt this overwhelming desire to escape London and ended up taking a job on a features desk in Scotland. And just something didn’t quite sit right, even though I was getting to write interesting pieces and work with interesting pieces. I really wanted to do something where I was giving back in some way. So I worked as an editor for NHS Health Scotland, which for other people… in Scotland the NHS system is devolved [0.25.00] from the UK. So it’s the National Health Service, and at that time they had a health board just for health information. So this was the organization that authored and published things like Ready Steady Baby. What a brilliant idea that mothers in Scotland are given a NHS version of how to have a baby, where everyone else is shelling out, I don’t know, £10.99, £15.99, £20 on books from Waterstones or any other bookseller. In Scotland you are given this book, which explains everything from vitamins to how your pregnancy and your fetus is developing to what kind of care you’re going to get. But it also published things like…

Amy: That sounds so natural and obvious. 

Nicki: It was brilliant, completely brilliant. They published things around immunizations and vaccinations. They also published stuff for primary care clinicians. And so it was a really interesting job, editing things like Ready Steady Baby, but also being there at the time when the HPV, the cervical cancer vaccine was first being rolled out and being part of that health information campaign. Anyway, I really loved it, it felt really purposeful to be doing something where I was making a difference. And at some point an opportunity came to move into the digital team. They were looking for someone with editorial experience to set up, to recruit and run a content team. So that’s what I did. I had a team of four content editors and we basically created the various sites that accompanied all of these publications. And then I guess the twist… like lots of people… some people are client side, then they go agency or they’re agency and they go client side. And I was working with a particular creative agency in Edinburgh and I thought they were brilliant and so I went to work for them for a bit. And then I moved back to London and joined another product innovation transformation agency. And then I came to Ustwo. So meandering, but sort of enjoying each twist as it came and taking something from one role into another.

Amy: It’s the kind of path that you never could have planned out and it wouldn’t have made sense to you or anyone else if you did. But if you stay present in it and attuned to what it is you’re getting out of it, your natural gravitation towards something more purposeful is what pulled you through to where you are now. And you’ve been at Ustwo for over a decade. It’s rare that I talk to a CEO who doesn’t have an MBA, so this is very interesting and exciting. I would love for you to tell me first about Ustwo as a company and then about your path to becoming CEO?

Nicki: Yeah, sure. First of all, yes, I do acknowledge my lack of MBA. I think a lot of…

Amy: I mean I didn’t mean that as a bad thing, I hope you…

Nicki: No, no, I didn’t, but I think you’re right and I think so much of what I do at Ustwo is motivated by learning. I really enjoy… I’ve been at Ustwo for just over 10 years and I never imagined I would stay anywhere as long as I have. And one of the many reasons is I’m constantly learning new things and obviously part of that has been… if you’d asked me 15 years ago how to run a P&L I would have said, “Sorry, what’s P&L? What do you mean [** 0:28:46]?” A lot of these things I had to learn and I’m a big believer in you should take a job where you can only do 80% of it and enjoy the challenge of learning how to do the other 20%, because otherwise you’re just kind of going through the motions. 

Amy: I’m going to share that with my students. 

Nicki: More women should do that. 

Amy: Yeah. 

Nicki: More women should do that. I think a lot of men have that instinctively or are encouraged to do that.

Amy: I think you might be right about that. 

Nicki: I think my understanding anyway, from a few things that I’ve read is that a woman will feel like she needs to tick every aspect of the requirements and I say, hey, you’ve got 70-80% of it, just go, you’ll learn the rest, you’re talented, go for it. I came into Ustwo and I was part of the business team and previously I’d had a role where I was a practitioner as much as someone who was handling relationships. So it was a really big shift and change for me. And then through changes over time, and different people leaving, I was leaving the business team and so that meant being part of the leadership team. And a company goes through lots of cycles during that time. [0.30.00] And so then became co-MD with someone else on an interim basis and then took the MD job and went from there. In terms of what Ustwo does, I mentioned we’re employee owned, that was a really exciting thing that happened a couple of years ago. We had been a B Corp since 2019 and it was sort of almost just a codification or an extension of our values, of our desire to do things that have a positive impact on the world, think about the environmental impact, think about the impact on people. And so that was very exciting for us the first time we were certified. And to keep your B Corp certification you get re-certified every three years. It’s a really rigorous process. And you have to improve your points. 

So you have to be demonstrating not only that you are on track with your policies and the way you’re interacting with people and the decisions you’re making and your sustainability, but actually that you’re improving and I really value that about the B Corp certification that you’re kind of constantly striving to do better. And so the two founders of the company, Mills and Sinx, Ustwo is now 20 years old and they were two best friends and they created this brilliant company. And they wanted to create something that was a little bit different to what was happening at the time. They wanted like-minded people who shared their values. They felt that there was a different way to treat people. I think if you ask them both, when they founded the company it was an era of big ego driven creative director who would shout at people and behave in a particular way. And they wanted to do something different. And so any of us who have come since then, since they stopped running the company day-to-day, are really just guardians of their values. And that’s why I say that my role, it’s a privilege to be a leader at Ustwo, because they created something, our values…one of them is ‘be human’ and what we mean by that is actually care. 

And what’s come out of that is that people here make friendships, genuine friendships for life. There are Ustwo babies, there are Ustwo relationships. People stay in touch who might have left the company 10-15-20 years ago and hang out, or they meet up in different countries when they’re all nearby. There’s a genuine care. Someone who left recently said, ‘the only way I can describe Ustwo to people, when we meet up for our annual get-together, it’s like being at a wedding. There are so many people you want to see, talk to, laugh with, celebrate with, have a dance with. And I think that’s really, really rare. And the other thing that goes hand-in-hand with that, another value is ‘raise the bar.’ People here are really talented; they’re constantly seeking to do something new and different. And we talk about at Ustwo, we’re motivated to create breakthrough digital experiences, to really create something that stands out in category, that drives real impact for our clients. That might be anything from us recently working with La Roche Posay, part of L’Oreal group. They have amazing skincare products and one of them was an acne product, but they noticed that what was happening is people were using it and then the drop-off was quite sharp and so people were saying they weren’t seeing the results. So we created this sort of AI, partially AI driven coach that coached you on how to use the product, come back to the product, notice results and actually then benefit from that repeated usage. 

So that’s driven impact for the individual because people are feeling more confident in their skin, that’s obviously driven impact for the company because they’ve got retention and people are coming back and using the products. That’s just one example. But I think people here day-to-day always want to do better. So it’s amazing to work with such talented people who also do stay. I think our average retention now is about 4.5 years in an industry where people really tend to leave after about two, so people stick around and they really grow and develop while they’re here, which again, is a privilege to see and support.

Amy: Thank you for that, and thank you for that example. I’m contrasting what you’ve just told me about the AI driven coach for La Roche Posay against… so much of our digital experience, it makes us feel bad, it does not make us feel better. It’s about holding our attention so they can serve us ads. It’s about harvesting our data so they can serve us ads. [0.35.00] It’s also in a social media kind of context, it ends up triggering all these comparisons that make you feel bad. And so this actual value of making products that make people feel better seems also so natural and obvious, but it is not necessarily what the perception is, I don’t know, the perception is that the tech industry is not driven by making people feel better. 

Nicki: Yeah, that I definitely agree with. We’re in really turbulent times. Certainly Silicon Valley, you had Mark Zuckerberg talking about ‘moving fast and breaking things.’ I believe in the absolute opposite things. I think sometimes as a leader you have to move fast and fix things, but I see that as completely different from what Zuckerberg at the time is talking about, which is why we probably take a slower approach, or I’m a big believer in stop the disruption and actually start caring about individuals more, I agree with you, I think so much of what we put out to the world is digital garbage and landfill and we’re constantly distracted. Ustoo, we don’t create marketing products, we’re not interested in harvesting your data unless it’s for something meaningful, in which you’ve explicitly consented for. So we do try and think about how we can meaningfully help. Just under 10 years ago we worked in partnership with some psychologists, they had an organization called Thriveport, it’s very small they were looking at how digital and CBT could come together to be more beneficial. 

And we reached out to them and said, “We love what you’ve done, but we think we can bring our product design to create something that will be more engaging.” And we were motivated by wanting to reduce mental health stigma and look at were there ways that digital could really help. Could we have a long term ambition that you could have… there’s almost like a pill in your pocket. And we created something called Moodnotes in partnership with them which was very simple, a really simple journaling experience that at its very first level was just a gesture where you move the smiley face and at the same time colors change that indicates your mood. And then if you wanted to write more, you might write notes about how you’re feeling. And then if you wanted to go a little deeper, we had the scientific rigor of the CBT method or articulated by these two psychologists. 

Amy: I’m just jumping in to say that CBT is for cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Nicki: Oh yes, thank you. (Laughter) And so that CBT process, taking you on a journey so that you could hopefully improve your mood over time. And that’s again, just another example of how digital can be really helpful. We weren’t arguing to replace in-person therapy, and this was before the pandemic when people did do a lot of things in person. We weren’t arguing for a replacement of that therapy, more a partnership or additional support. I think it’s the same with a recent experiment we did for ourselves around could AI help with everyone’s desire to eat more plants? We’re hearing, I’m sure it’s the same all over, you can’t read a news article or flick through a magazine without hearing about your microbiome and your gut health, the impact it can have overall on your mental health, your physical health, your immunity, your serotonin levels. And so we wanted to answer a really simple question, would AI help us stick to a habit of eating 30 plants a week? So we created something called Sproutiful, really simple, take a picture on your phone, the AI would confirm what’s in there, mustard leaves, some chickpeas, something else, whatever you’d eaten for lunch. You say, oh, you’ve missed… I don’t know, the kale. We total up your plant points and let you know… and encourage and nudge you to come back. And also we had worked with a clinician in behavioral psychology and behavioral coaching and he helped us think about the nudging that could help people really think about their motivation for why they were trying to eat more plants, to keep them on track. It was just really interesting, [0.40.00] eight weeks, something quite speedy and fast. 

Amy: What kind of nudges are helpful? I’m having a hard time imagining anything other than my phone or my watch beeping at me when I least expect it? 

Nicki: Oh I see, like a little nudge might be… I still actually get them every now and then for Sproutiful. Might be, ‘have you thought about what you’re going to eat today?’ In terms of the motivational, bespoke nudges, they’re more, do you remember why you’re doing this? People are motivated by different things, right? For somebody it might be as simple as, I want to be healthier. Or somebody might be like, I want to lose a bit of weight, someone else might say, I’m in good shape but my cholesterol is a bit high and I’ve heard if I eat more plants that will help. Whatever the reason is. And the idea of the motivational questioning is that if you keep being reminded and focused on that, it’s much easier to stick to a plant. And I guess you and I self-identified as not being goal oriented planner types…

Amy: Exactly, yes! (Laughs)

Nicki: The only parallel I can make is that when I years ago used to really enjoy running and did occasionally races and would train for a half marathon, keeping to a training program can be really hard, particularly at particular points, you’re feeling really tired, or even when you’re doing the final race. But actually knowing why you’re doing it, everyone has a reason, fitness, health, I want a new challenge. Being reminded of the reason you’re doing something is a really good way to keep you on track. 

Amy: Yeah, I see that, I want to talk a little bit, you mentioned Moodnotes, which I also think is a fascinating project and has the potential to do some real good. Has it been around long enough that you have some feedback, you can understand the impact of it? 

Nicki: We got lots of good results. There was great organic growth and really good engagement. I think the main thing was that people felt that it was a real reliable port in a storm, somewhere they could regularly share how they were feeling and be honest about their emotions. But I also think they felt reassured that it was backed by this cognitive behavioral therapy method. So it felt reassuring to know they were being held within a psychological framework. So yeah, it was a real success and at one point we even entertained the notion of getting external funding. We were approached by some VCs, that was kind of wild, we tripped to San Francisco, meeting VCs, dipping my toe in and then getting… realizing that I’m probably not quite built for that world. But yeah, it was a great product that we were very proud of because it felt meaningful, but that actually at the point when we had over 100,000 users that had come totally organically, not through any marketing, we realized that we had identified a need and designed a product that was meeting it well. 

Amy: I took a spin through some of the comments, just on the App Store, and one of the things that I picked up from a lot of the feedback, like the user interface was so easy, you didn’t have to fully type in how you were feeling, which I know, for me, if I’m not feeling great, I don’t want to input things. I don’t want to write it up. [0.45.00] So the ability to just track your mood with a very simple gesture over time and start to make the correlations, it seems like that pattern recognition was really available and accessible and that seemed really helpful. So I want to just commend that some of the success of the app it’s grounding in science, but also in its understanding of how the user will need to interact with it and it seems like it’s a beloved, helpful tool. 

Nicki: Oh, that’s really, really lovely to hear. In my view we need more tools like this, right? I’m sure that there are new forecasts, but I know that in 2015 when we were looking at this, or launching the first version, the World Health Organization was forecasting that by 2030 depression was going to be the number one cause of global disability, that might have shifted now, but that’s a huge thing for us to kind of grapple with as a society. And to go back to your point about how you find so much of digital is noise and doom scrolling and data harnessing, but I think products like this are kind of helpful examples that people hopefully are benefitting from in a meaningful way. 

Amy: I do want to go back to what you said earlier and unpack that a little bit more. Your value proposition or your mantra is ‘stop disrupting, start caring,’ and I wonder if you can really talk about what that means to you personally and for you, and for us too as the organization that is in a position to create some of these really helpful tools? And be a voice in the tech industry that can be a counter balance to the other perspective. 

Nicki: Yeah, for 20 years we’ve been imagining and launching new digital experiences and through all of that we’ve always kept the user, the end user at the center. What will meaningfully engage them? What will be useful to them? What will help them in their day-to-day? And so so much of that has motivated what Ustwo has done, whether that was partnership with TFL and the Royal London Society for the Blind to look at how we could use eye beacons to help people navigate London transport. And that’s a really good example. It was innovation for today’s problems rather than worrying about this long distant, far-off future. And I suppose that’s just another example of ‘stop disrupting, start caring’ is, again, I know I’m repeating my point, but you don’t need to break things. You need to pause and think about the problem for an individual and what would be the simplest solution for that, it doesn’t have to be the flashiest or the fastest or the showiest. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t have fun in the process or that we don’t include exciting flourishes in our experience to make them stand out or in some cases be award winning. The Body Coach is another example. Joe Wicks was a really well-known personal trainer who had something called Lean in 15 as a series of cookbooks and he had a great business, but basically it was run by pdf, you would get this pdf and then you’d get a link to some private YouTube videos. And he wanted to create a digital business. How could he create a bespoke experience to help people lose weight, improve their mental fitness? But he wanted to create something that was more inclusive and accessible. And that really appealed to us. How could we help a leading fitness guru create accessible fitness to everyone?

Amy: Because healthier people are happier people. (Laughs)

Nicki: Absolutely, healthier people are happier people and we all need to be thinking about our health. It feels boring to say that, but actually…

Amy: But it is helpful in the fight against depression. 

Nicki: Exactly, it’s helpful in the fight against depression, we’re living longer lives, we want those to be healthier lives. And so Joe had this extraordinary success because suddenly we’re in Covid and lockdown and he did something in the UK which was called PE With Joe and basically every day he would do a live PE workout, which families and kids who were stuck in lockdown from school did together. And then the app came out, which is brilliant, you get your bespoke macros, your bespoke fitness videos, building you up through various stages, starting with body weight, resistance training and then adding in weights. But you’ve also got your meal planner. And that was really brilliant to work on. In fact Apple told us it was the most successful launch they’d had since Disney Plus, so we felt really chuffed about that for Joe.

Amy: Yeah!

Nicki: But yeah, I guess the notion really of stop disrupting, is take a moment and pause. Stop thinking about the next thing and just think about the technology that we have today to solve today’s problems. We don’t have to worry about tomorrow, let’s solve today’s problems with today’s technology. And I think sometimes for people that doesn’t feel innately sexy, but I think it’s a brilliant thing. As I say, I mentioned the eye beacons, which weren’t a flashy new piece of technology, that a team here worked on to improve navigation for people and the London underground. And they then went on to develop an open standard around navigation that’s now used globally. Or we worked with Helios to help them develop a fertility app called Pineapp to help couples planning a really complicated and emotional journey and again, for that you have to be really thoughtful just how you’re doing the interviews, how you’re thinking about talking to people, how you’re thinking about what the right information at the right time is that they want to be provided with. I think that’s where it’s come from.

Amy: This sounds extremely sexy to me, I don’t know who corrupted your mind with the idea that these are not sexy… this is an extension of the culture that’s created at Ustwo, this is looking around at your fellow humans and seeing where they’re not being served and what they need and you’re reaching into the most vulnerable areas of their life, their health, their family planning, their navigating a system when their eyesight is impaired, and you’re assisting them. And this to me… this is what love can be in digital form. 

Nicki: Totally. Totally. I love that. No I agree, you’re right, scratch my comment about whether it’s sexy or not. But I think what I mean by that is there was a period where I think a lot of people wanted to talk about innovation and what’s at the bleeding edge of technology and what exciting new thing can we throw at the wall and see if it sticks. I think Ustwo, we’re looking at, okay, what’s the problem we’re trying to solve here and then what are the appropriate tools to use? Will working with AI help this particular problem? Do we need to tackle this problem in a different way? So I think it’s more there, that innovation can come from meaningful, thoughtful shifts, it doesn’t have to be what’s going on in AR/VR, although that can be exciting too. 

Amy: Yes, and I understand what you meant by ‘sexy’ and I’m just trying to counteract that narrative. That I think what you’re doing is extremely sexy and I also think that you’re working with AI in a way that sounds ethical and responsible and there’s a lot of fear and concern over how fast AI is developing and how biased it can be and how destructive it could possibly be. So help me find that hopeful perspective on AI?

Nicki: You’ve actually tapped into something really important. We have some principles that we’ve developed around AI. They are responsible, you’ve mentioned that one. So thinking about ethical design, transparency, what safeguards do we need to proactively put in place to ensure that the AI is working for everyone, not just a few. So we think about that. Focused, so gen AI is a kind of general purpose technology that could do lots of things, but let’s keep things tight and be really purposeful about the way that we’re using it. Our third principle is explainable, that fundamentally our clients and ultimately their clients, the users, the end users need to be able to understand the use of AI in a really clear and transparent way. So for us that trust and responsibility is very important. [0.55.00] And then finally adaptive, just being really mindful that AI products can be empathetic, they can be almost emotional, emotive, contextually aware and responsive to users. As an organization we need to think about how we’re fostering that value exchange between the user and the brand behind them. I guess my hope would be, I think there are a lot of responsible people out there using AI in meaningful, thoughtful ways. And like with any piece of technology or any human advancement, there will be those who are focused primarily on the economic gains for them as an individual and not the social impact. And then there will be others who push against the system, raise our awareness, ask the right questions, I’m thinking Meredith Whitaker, who will make sure that we’re paying awareness to the right things to ensure that we’re informed. And for me, I guess the thing I always think of is, does the individual have informed consent? That’s always been my issue with Facebook when people were posting things without necessarily understanding how much of themselves they’re handing over to this technology. I think to lean into the optimist in me, although not a techno optimist, just to be clear, to put some clear water between me and the West Coats techno optimist. The more we learn, the more we’ll understand, the more we’ll feel informed enough to say, I don’t want to use this. I actually think that a lot of organizations, certainly clients we’re speaking to are being very clear that their use of AI is an extension of their company values and the company strategy. So they need to build the right governance and safeguards in place when they’re deploying AI. And I do think that that is happening more and more. So, I sit here as someone who has a modicum of concern, but I also think that it’s really important that we are playful and we experiment and we educate ourselves. You’ve got to use the tools to understand which aspect of the tools you do and don’t like, to then be able to better understand what’s good and what’s less good about AI. 

Amy: Yes, I think moving forward it doesn’t serve to stay ignorant of the tools, using them will help you use your own critical judgement and critical thinking to parse out what is aligned with your values and how to move forward with AI in that way. And in so doing I have to assume that’s a collective information dataset that’s going into the ecosystem?

Nicki: Yeah. 

Amy: Yes? Yes, okay. I want to talk about you personally for a second. You seem really cool, I like you, I want to be your friend. 

Nicki: Oh thanks Amy, I wish we could go out for a virtual drink, a cocktail, I’m up for a margarita. 

Amy: I would love that! You are a CEO, you’re a mom of two.

Nicki: Yeah. 

Amy: You’ve had two death defying, harrowing health episodes in your life. And you’re working hard at things that mean a lot to you, that are very meaningful and important. So that seems like a life that’s crafted with a lot of care. But I also know that… nothing is all rosy for everyone. So in some ways I want to ask, we’ve heard a lot about where you’re hopeful, but I want to ask where you feel despair and/or chaos, not to exploit your vulnerability, but only to learn how you work with yourself through it, to keep growing? 

Nicki: Ooh, great question. First of all let me be clear, my bedroom is chaos. (Laughs) I always used to joke… this was years ago when I first became an MD and someone once… oh, Nicki’s so good at big picture thinking and keeping things on track and I was like, oh my god, if I only they saw what a mess my bedroom floor was. So I think I enjoy making order out of chaos in some aspects. But I also think… you mentioned I’m a CEO and I’m a mother, none of this happens without support of other people, right? So I’m really lucky to have a partner who gets up early in the morning and [1.00.00] and gets the kids breakfast every day, because I really like to sleep, because I stay up late to do work. So if that didn’t happen, the day would not function. Or having a partner who is supportive when I’m like, I’ve got to go to New York or actually I’m not around these three evenings because we’re doing something with clients or we’re hosting an event. Just acknowledging people, our amazing childminder who picks up the kids at 3:30 because schools are not a work day, they don’t run the same kind of hours. I think that’s just important to acknowledge, the people who enable me to do the things I do. I think the things… we’ve kind of touched a little bit on the things that really worry me. I am really politically engaged. I do get despondent sometimes when I read the news, I’m a sort of avid news consumer. So I sort of read the FT, the New York Times, the London Times, The Guardian, I try and get as much news as I can. It’s not easy reading. And I do think… I do feel sometimes despondent about that, where is the good news story or where is the ‘hopeful piece’ story. I know maybe as we record this, maybe we’re getting a bit closer to that in Ukraine. So I think that can be unsettling. I think the other things I worry about is probably what other parents worry about, my daughter has just started secondary school, what’s the future for the next generation like? We’re saddling them with more debt, the world is way more complicated. The expectations on young women today, Instagram filters and how they feel about themselves. I didn’t grow up with the Kardashians and sorry, Kardashian family, this is not to point the finger singly at you, but we did not… I did not grow up with social media. And that’s not the kind of Halsean days of running through a field where we were completely unaware or weren’t self-critical or didn’t self-objectify or do any of the things that are very normal developmentally for teenagers, but I do think it’s a very different world…The amount of phones out everywhere, I don’t know, you go to a music gig and you’re no longer at the music gig, you’re watching the video of you at the music gig. Everyone is just recording and documenting every moment. I think about that. I suppose it’s not quite chaos… and ‘fearful’ is too strong a word, but I do think actually what are the conversations that I need, the fundamental conversations that I need to be having with my daughter so that she hangs onto her sense of self or that confidence in herself for as long as possible. 

Amy: And what are those essential conversations? 

Nicki: Yeah. 

Amy: Yeah? Still thinking about it? 

Nicki: I am still thinking about… no, I am still thinking about it. We’ve had conversations around consent and standing your own ground and being kind to others and making choices, but I know more difficult conversations are going to come down the road and I need to think about that. And I’ve got a boy, my youngest is a boy, how do I make sure that he grows into a mindful, caring, self-aware individual. So I think there’s components there. 

Amy: It sounds like you’re a good mom and you’re thoughtful…

Nicki: I try. (Laughs)

Amy: Trying, and that’s important too. How do you work with yourself? Do you, after consuming all this news, do you notice if you’re feeling down and do you put yourself on a mild news diet? What are the ways that you care for yourself? 

Nicki: I’m not good at this. I had an executive coach… actually I had two over a period of time and whenever we got to the point where it’s like, Nicki, you need to slow down and do more self-care, it’s like, next! (Laughs) I am someone who loves a project as long as the project is not myself. I’m self-aware enough (laughter) to recognize that. I think if I’ve had a really stressful day, for me self-care looks like running to my local sauna and eating a bar of salted chocolate, that’s pretty good. 

Amy: Yeah!

Nicki: I mean actually joking aside, I do the things that perimenopausal women should do, I lift some weights, I do the odd bit of HIIT, I do some yoga. But it’s probably the last thing on the list. Again, I think that’s the nature of the beast. I’m not a morning person, so I’m not one of those brilliant people who talk about how much they’ve achieved by 9:00am because they were at gym at 5:00 and they’ve read all their emails by 7:00 and done two deals by 9:00am. But I do try and fit in some weight sessions and I love being by the seaside. In a moment of real despondency my partner knows the thing, that if we can make the time at the weekend, like if I go for a walk by the sea, it doesn’t matter if it’s not a blue sky, obviously that’s always really delightful, but just water, being in nature, I think that’s really restorative. And actually he’s very disciplined, he goes for a walk around the park twice a day, he does a fake commute when he’s working from home and I do think that that’s probably a healthier response than my salted chocolate. 

Amy: (Laughs) That is a good model. Nothing wrong with salted chocolate. (Laughter) I think that’s very good too. I also want to venture an observation. I think that one of the things that’s been apparent through this interview is that you like to keep learning. And so in some ways I think that information it makes you feel like you have a handle on the world. And that might be something you use to help stay centered actually, is consuming information so that you don’t feel like you don’t know what’s going on. 

Nicki: I think Amy you are spot on. I know that for some people reading the news endlessly can feel like doom scrolling, but actually there’s something, I find as you say, quite reassuring, quite centering about, okay, this is what’s happening in finance, this is what’s happening in politics, this is what’s going on at home. I find that really useful. I like to be as informed… and I do like to keep learning. And I suppose actually I didn’t mention this, I should have, and it’s probably just because I haven’t read so much in the last couple of weeks, but reading. I absolutely love it, it is the ultimately luxury to have time to read books and I’ll always enjoy being able to do that. 

Amy: Well, I have enjoyed this. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you and I do hope we get to meet and have a margarita one day in person, that would be delightful. 

Nicki: I would love that! I would love that!

Amy: (Laughs) In the meantime is there anything on the horizon for you or for Ustwo that we should look out for that’s kind of exciting for you right now? 

Nicki: We have a couple of really exciting projects in the news and information space. I think in a world where, to your earlier point around how can we trust AI and it feels like there’s a lot of fake news out there and trust is so important, actually being able to work with news organizations to think about how do you portray information in a way that’s engaging. Obviously news organizations have to have business models that work for them and that means subscriptions, they’ve got to engage people in new interesting ways, but you also want to be a trusted news source. Doing some interesting work there. We’re continuing to work with L’Oreal which is really great. We’ve got some really exciting work going on in the US with a large entertainment company which will be on the horizon in the future, I can’t say more about that. And we’re continuing our decade long partnership with Google, which is always a wonderful place to be. So there’s good stuff happening there and I think for me, personally, I am in the process of hiring a new member of our leadership team who is going to be based in the US, which I’m very excited about. We’re down to final candidates and have met some really talented people along the way, so that’s been a really rewarding journey, so I’m excited about that, it’s always great to add new team members. And I’m really excited about us having an exec in the US and growing the team over there. We’ve got such talented, brilliant people there and as we’re winning more work in New York and beyond, we’re looking forward to growing the team there. So that’s probably the exciting stuff going on at the moment. 

Amy: That sounds pretty exciting. Congratulations to you and also thank you, we didn’t talk about this, but you played an instrumental role in decreasing the wage gap at Ustwo.

Nicki: Oh yes!

Amy: So cheers to you! 

Nicki: Thank you. Thank you. (Laughs)

Amy: I enjoyed this so much, thank you Nicki for sharing your story and for sharing even the hard parts, this has been really great. 

Nicki: Amy, thank you so much, it was a really fun chat, honestly, really, really enjoyed it, so thank you. 
Amy: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you like Clever, there are a number of ways you can support us: Complete our listener survey at the link in the description. Share Clever with your friends, leave us a 5 star rating, or a kind review, hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app so that our new episodes will turn up in your feed. For a transcript of this episode and more about Nicki, including links and images of her work, head to our website. Cleverpodcast. com. While you're there, check out our resources page for books, info, and special offers from our guests, partners, and sponsors, and sign up for our free sub stack newsletter, which includes news announcements and a bonus Q and a from our guests. If you like clever, we could really use your support. You can share Clevver with your friends, leave us a five star rating or a kind review, support our sponsors, and definitely hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app so that our new episodes will turn up in your feed. We love to hear from you on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X. You can find us Us at Clever Podcast, and you can find me at Amy Devers. Clever is hosted and produced by me, Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurowinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anoushka Stefan, and music by El Ten Eleven. Clever is a proud member of the Surround Podcast Network. Visit surroundpodcasts. com to discover more of the architecture and design industry's premier shows.

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Young Nicki

Young Nicki

ustwo at the Emotive AI panel, Neuehouse, New York

Sproutiful

Moodnotes

Helios Health - a human-centred fertility journey

Helios Health - a human-centred fertility journey

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Clever is produced and hosted by Amy Devers with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

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