Alexis Puchek, Hudl’s new VP of Design, doesn’t have a sports background—she has a design background. And a passion for what she does. That’s what our teams value most: people who are passionate about their craft.
Thriving on problem-solving doesn’t hurt either. “The problems that I solve in my day to day really depend on what the team needs. Right now, I'm focusing a whole, whole bunch on the design chapter, how we come together as a unit, as an organization, as a team, and feel really collaborative and fun and connected.”
I get out of bed in the morning every day super stoked to come to work.
Watch our full interview with Alexis Puchek.
Journey to VP of Design
Though her zeal for design began in college, Alexis Puchek also taught herself parts of the design world she didn’t cover in school, like web design and experience design. In her 18 years before she came to Hudl, she gained experience in both in-house design and at design agencies, working across industries. Across her many specialities in that time, accessibility was one of the most important to her.
“Learning more about accessibility, and what that means, and how to push beyond being just the ‘voice of the customer,’ and into actually doing customer and user interviews—literally hearing from people to effect a change in what you do.”
I got to really learn about the breadth of what was out there in the world.
But in all those years, she hadn’t yet found her way to a company focused on sports. In fact, when approached about the opportunity at Hudl, Puchek wasn’t so sure about a “sports company.”
“I'm so glad that I [gave it a shot] because everyone I talked to was incredible. Hudl is so purpose driven. We have a reason to do the things that we do. And yes, it's sports and athletics and to be awesome and succeed in that environment. But it's also to give athletes the best shot that they deserve, to help give equal access and opportunity to individuals, to reach universities or institutions or recruiters that they might not have had an opportunity to do so otherwise.”
Hudl’s tools for athletes put their recruiting journey in their own hands. Having video gives them the ability to be seen, which they might not have had otherwise. But Puchek’s enthusiasm for equality goes further than access to technology. Her advocacy for DE&I is backed up by logic.
“Diversity makes better products, period. If we are solving a problem from only one perspective, from only one position, one level of framing, one direction, we will still solve a problem. But is it potentially leaving out so many other opportunities or inherently doing harm in a community or in a culture or for people or for the product? Absolutely, yes.”
I love where Hudl is going in that we invest in diversity. We publish our diversity reports, we hold ourselves accountable because it's the investment that matters, that says we're moving the mark, we're moving the needle. It matters to us.
Continuing to learn from each other and build relationships with different people is one of the things Puchek said has lead her to success. “[It] builds shared understanding and that allows you to collaborate and connect and to really figure problems out more effectively as a team and not just one person.”
That, and being a big kid at heart. “It inspires me every day. It makes my wife laugh, it makes me laugh, it keeps me having fun every day. And then that, in itself, also inspires me to think about new things, like, ‘oh, what if we did this in this way here?’"
