Jonathan Stephens🇺🇸
Co-Founder at Poet & Scribe
About Jonathan Stephens
Co-Founder at Poet & Scribe
I am an experienced, multidisciplinary designer & inclusive tech leader with over 15 years of experience supporting a wide variety of client-, customer-, and partner-facing organizations. I've been called a designer, leader, writer, coach, animator, editor, mentor, illustrator, photographer, facilitator.
I began working at Booking.com as a User Experience Designer in 2013, quickly growing to Team Lead, Senior UX Designer, then Senior Engineering & Product Development Manager. My open, informal, and transparent working style has enabled me to grow from freelancing to leading organizations, creating products at a global scale.
As a Senior Manager, I led groups of customer-facing, partner-facing teams. My B2C organizations spanned a wide breadth of subject areas & technologies—from maps & geo, to search, to localization on a global scale. My B2B organizations developed web apps to iOS & Android mobile apps, to XML/API development, improving products ultimately for customers.
Throughout my decade of working at Booking.com, I honed my skills, bringing people along for the ride, researching, leading, and facilitating solutions rather than deciding & defining them in isolation.
I strive to create an open & supportive environment. I work collaboratively, discovering needs & co-creating solutions with clients, peers, and direct reports. I use my strategic thinking hat to effectively soundboard & brainstorm. I'll start at one idea and turn it into something compelling, thinking several leaps ahead on possible future paths for projects & products.
I actively listen, asking questions to understand the problems & needs of who I'm working with. Having worked with diverse groups people from 60+ countries around the world, I understands the importance of communication, clearly setting expectations on what's possible & what's not. It's better business to communicate honestly, transparently, and often.
I've been recognised as a leader who actively works towards creating an inclusive, safe working-space with Booking.com's internal Playmaker Award in 2019 & 2020—nominated by co-workers and awarded to 30 people out of 20,000 across the world.
Expertise
What mentees say
“My first session ever at ADPList & I was little nervous but he patiently listened everything & understood & then gave me different directions on how I can go for the job I want. He was very helpful!”
“Jonathan was my first mentor on ADPList and I couldn't have asked for a better match! He took the time to listen to all the points I brought up (and there were plenty), gave me spot-on resources and invaluable guidance. He's very well spoken, extremely knowledgable, calm and supportive. I highly recommend him as a mentor!”
“Jonathan was very patient with our session. I felt like he actually set time aside to talk to me. He was very honest about his knowledge and I never got the impression that he was just improvising as he went along. He also gave me excellent examples to look at for inspiration for my portfolio. Highly recommended.”