Cheryl Platz
Cheryl Platz is an internationally renowned design leader, author, speaker, and actor based in the Los Angeles area. Her first book Design Beyond Devices is available via Rosenfeld Media and most online booksellers in print and digital formats. She is currently the Director of User Experience, Player Platform at Riot Games, and owner of design education company Ideaplatz, LLC.
Cheryl’s acting and hosting work has been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world, from multi-cam livestream TV shows on Twitch and dozens of comic convention and arts festival appearances to her design TikTok account of 36,000 followers.
An East Coast native, Cheryl spent the first half of her life in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia suburbs and Carnegie Mellon University) and passed through stints in Orlando and San Francisco before making her home in Seattle for 17 years. Her professional career began with video gaming (Maxis/EA, Griptonite Games) and theme park technology (Walt Disney World), but she also spent years working on cloud and enterprise software (Microsoft) and technology for large scale philanthropy (Gates Foundation) as well as groundbreaking consumer products like Alexa (Amazon) and Cortana.
Cheryl has a long history of engagement with community organizations, including 2 years on the executive board of STEM nonprofit IGNITE Worldwide (Inspiring Girls Now for Technology Evolution); an ongoing role as an administrator with the community advocacy group The Online Creators Association, extensive volunteer work for Unexpected Productions and other arts organizations, and numerous guest appearances as a workshop instructor (DigiGirlz, Girls Who Code) and speaker.
In 2021, Cheryl launched a new chapter of her life with her husband and actor David Foubert by moving to Los Angeles for her new role at Riot Games.
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