As an interdisciplinary designer and thinker focused on what’s coming next in tech and its potential impact on our world, it’s only fitting that Kim Lê Boutin forged her practice during the formative period of the internet. “I started coding websites when I was 13,” she tells CR. “I also had this online blog – I was doing drawings, making music playlists, making photography and I liked writing a lot, so I created a website where I could put all of that.”

When she realised she could make a living out of what she was already doing for fun, she enrolled at the prestigious Gobelins Paris art school, where she was among the first in France to receive formal training in digital design. “Back then we were calling it multimedia, and it was really something for nerds – it was like the poor [cousin] of graphic design,” she recalls. “Even the teachers had no professional experience in the field, so I was really bored, because I was already making money designing websites for people through MySpace and things like that.”

Fifteen years on and Lê Boutin has built an expansive career straddling design, research, strategy and education, working with brands ranging from Apple to Bottega Veneta. There’s a common thread that runs through much of the creative director’s work to date, having typically found herself at the cutting edge of digital innovation.