Leadership Without the Ladder: The Myth of the Management Track with Filippos Protogeridis

What if becoming a manager isn’t the upgrade you’ve been led to believe?

A lot of mid-level and senior designers assume the only way to advance their careers is to become managers. But what if that path isn’t right for you? What if there are better options? In this episode, I talk with Filippos Protogeridis, who shares his journey from founding designer to head of product design at a rapidly growing healthtech startup in London.

Filippos didn’t follow the traditional ladder. Instead of giving up hands-on work, he redefined what leadership looks like for his role, blending vision work, hiring, mentoring, and strategy with the design work he still loves. We talk about why most companies get the “promotion to management” thing all wrong, and how to think more clearly about what you actually want from your next step.

If you’ve been wrestling with questions about growth, leadership, and what it really means to “level up” in UX, this episode is for you. Tune in and rethink what success in design leadership can look like.

Topics:
• 05:00 – Filippos’ Background and Journey
• 06:43 – Challenges in Leadership Transition
• 14:20 – The Importance of Hiring and Letting Go
• 26:33 – Hands-On Leadership and Visioning
• 34:54 – Types of Design Leadership Roles
• 41:42 – Impact of Layoffs on Leadership
• 42:21 – Shift in Hiring Trends
• 43:03 – Lean Management and Hands-On Roles
• 43:47 – Challenges and Opportunities in Hybrid Roles
• 46:21 – Embracing the Founding Designer Mode
• 48:53 – Market Chaos and Its Impact
• 49:38 – Entrepreneurial Mindset in Large Organizations
• 54:58 – Closing Thoughts on Leadership and Followership

Helpful Links:
• Connect with Filippos on LinkedIn

Filippos Protogeridis
Head of Product Design @ MANUAL

About Filippos

Neil is an outcome-focused digital leader. For the last 20 years, he’s delivered growth for big-name brands across grocery, electronics, and broadcast media. He uses a collaborative approach to develop digital strategies and roadmaps with a customer-centric, omnichannel mindset for long-term growth and engagement. His favorite word is “Why,” which he uses often to get to the root cause of requests and decisions made. And he comes with a sense of humor to keep perspective. Neil is passionate about building autonomous, diverse, and empowered teams across people of color, gender, LGBTQ, disabilities, and disadvantaged backgrounds. He is currently the head of product and design at Mindful Chef out of the UK.

Connect with Filippos on LinkedIn

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