Natalie Kuhn (she/her) Meet the service designer
Along with fellow service design pioneers in the New York City area, Natalie Kuhn helped establish the SDN New York Chapter. In the years since, her team and chapter have been recognised with awards for their chapter activities, and she has been involved with the global SDN's efforts around Diversity, Equity Natalie Kuhn is a Senior Manager of Service Design within the Capital One Commercial Bank and co-founder of both the SDN New York Chapter and SDN DEI Task Force.
and Inclusion, as part of a taskforce established in 2020. She also manages to find time for her day job: Managing service design at US banking giant Capital One. Here, she chats with Touchpoint Editor-in-Chief Jesse Grimes about her roles and ambitions. Jesse Grimes: You've been at the forefront of a group of volunteers who have fostered and built the service design community in New York City, first independently and then as a chapter of the SDN. Who does that community consist of now, and how do you characterise the practice of service design in the city?
Natalie Kuhn: Our community consists of folks who range from being interested in understanding what service design is to practicing professionals within the field. Up until the pandemic we catered to those within the New York City area, extending into New Jersey, but now we are honoured to welcome anyone within an EST-friendly time zone. Based on conversations within our events, the community is most interested in the 74 Touchpoint 12-2
tangible application of service design as well as topics such as diversity, equity, inclusion, ethics and social good. They seem to enjoy digging into the plethora of contexts in which service design can be applied, as well as being given some time to practice methods and interact with one another. One of both my most stressful, and laughable, moments last year was when our 90-person Zoom group faced a technical issue with breakout rooms, but was unwilling to turn off their cameras to try to remedy the issue. They stubbornly wanted to maintain connection, and that was wonderful. To me that is the community in a nutshell – people who want to get into the weeds of service design while connecting on a very human level. Outside of events, the service design industry within New York City is
