Tracy Sharp
- Senior Design Manager
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Design Age Institute
Tracy is a Senior Design Manager and has over 15 years of experience in engineering, manufacturing and product development for household name brands.
Managing the design projects being funded by the Design Age Institute, Tracy will provide insights, direction and coaching to the entrepreneurs using her rich experience in developing products to production.
As a design engineer Tracy has worked in many industries honing her expertise in design and developed her role into leadership. Her interest in inclusivity has been enhanced by her experience of working as a woman in a male dominated field, and as an expatriate working in Asia and Europe.
She trained to become a coach to empower underrepresented people and started her business, SharpMinds in 2022.
Key details
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Research interests
Tracy’s personal interest lies in design thinking, diversity, equity and inclusion and the impact of inclusive cultures in empowerment and productivity.
Practice
Working as a woman in a male dominated industry, Tracy felt the real impact on her physical and mental wellbeing as she developed her style as an empathetic leader. She wanted to learn more about what was needed to empower herself and those around her and was drawn to coaching and mentoring.
Tracy founded her practice, SharpMinds in 2022 and has made many appearances at schools, universities and businesses to start the conversation regarding the issues felt as an underrepresented person in the design industry and the importance of creating inclusive cultures, recognising bias and empowering workforces.
She is a mentor for several initiatives, empowering women and supporting startups who want to create inclusive cultures from the ground up.
She talks about perfectionism, values, boundaries, imposter syndrome, bias and allyship.
She brings in design thinking principles to her coaching process and launched a podcast – Beginner’s Guide to Design Thinking: An A-Z – in January 2023, discussing her career in engineering and how design thinking can be used in other areas, such as for your business and your life.
External collaborations
For her podcast, Tracy collaborates with Flourish Unlimited – a design thinking facilitation business.
Mentor, Central Research Laboratory
Board Member, University of Strathclyde (Pending)