Channa Witana

I bring nearly two decades of experience in the field of User Experience, with a diverse background that includes UX Research, UI Designing (Enterprise Applications, Mobile apps, Websites…), UX Measuring, Visual Designing, and Strategic Planning for Institutionalising UX. In my current role as a Senior Manager - UX Design at Garrett Motion Inc (a spinoff company from Honeywell) I am playing a key role in the IT leadership team to transform the way we solve customer & employee problems by applying design thinking process, agile UX design, development, and deployment. I lead a team of 6 designers who are based in UK, Romania, and India. 

I must highlight that; I kicked off the UX practice at Garrett Motion Inc. as the first-ever UX Leader and managed to show the impact of UX and convinced the top management to gradually build the current UX team by hiring and expanding capabilities.

With over 15 years of experience in user experience (UX) design and leadership, I am passionate about creating valuable and engaging experiences for both B2C and B2B environments. I hold a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (Human Factors and Ergonomics), and have authored multiple international publications and patents in the field of UX and human factors.

As the Senior UX Manager at Garrett Motion, a global leader in automotive technology, I lead a multi-disciplinary team of UX designers to build and test UI/UX designs that exceed customer and stakeholder expectations. I also successfully institutionalized human-centered design (HCD) practice in the organization by defining and implementing the required processes, metrics, organizational structure, and culture. One of my key responsibilities is to drive UX research and design for Garrett's factory digitization initiatives under the Industry 4.0 framework, leveraging real-time data and advanced analytics to optimize factory operations and performance.

Ph.D. ‐  Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management (Human Factors and Ergonomics), 

            The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong, 2007

BSc. Engineering ‐ Mechanical Engineering (FIRST CLASS HONORS), (Ranking 1st /53)

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, 2001