SOMA BHAKTA is a UX design leader with over 15 years of experience creating innovative, high-impact products for startups and Fortune 500 companies. She has led UX strategy, research, and execution across enterprise SaaS, cloud infrastructure, AI/ML, DevOps, and security, building and scaling design teams from the ground up. Her leadership includes founding the UX function at Harness, driving UX innovation at McAfee Consumer Innovation Lab, and leading UX for Equinix¡¯s Cloud Edge Infrastructure business, where she created a design system that delivered multi-million-dollar ROI in just six months and helped shape a culture of design at scale. She is passionate about integrating user-centered design with business strategy, mentoring future design leaders, and designing for emerging technologies like AI. Soma holds a master¡¯s degree in Mass Communication and Journalism and has served as a mentor for UC Santa Cruz¡¯s MS HCI program.