William Anthony Yanko, PhD

William Yanko is a CX/UX Research leader and PhD-qualified Anthropologist who has spent over a decade figuring out why people do what they do, and making sure that actually matters to the organisations he works with. His path hasn’t been a straight line. Along the way, he’s embedded himself in contexts most researchers don’t get near, from wearable technology and city-scale tracking systems to emergency safety tools in mining and early-stage fintech at a Southeast Asian super-app. He currently heads the Centre of Excellence for Research at Flight Centre Travel Group – Leisure, working closely with senior leadership to ensure major business, product and technology decisions are grounded in real human behaviour. His PhD from RMIT University, where he researched the sociopolitics of Indonesian hip hop, is what shaped his conviction that good research is ultimately about listening carefully to people who are rarely asked.