Jessica DeMartini is an accomplished customer experience strategy leader with 15+ years of experience delivering optimal customer engagement and growth for diverse mid to large size companies. She is leveraging her leadership talents in the Wells Fargo Experience Design team to bring a customer-centric, data-driven, and iterative strategy to life.
Paul is a recognized design leader who has a seasoned depth and breadth of experience across many industry verticals, including finance, banking, tourism, real estate, and medical innovation. He has a proven track record for building and maturing design cultures within organizations as well as delivering a diverse suite of consumer products and services to market. He takes pride in leading and scaling large multidisciplinary teams through programs of transformative change that centralizes and institutionalizes the practice of design across the enterprise.
Rory earned his master’s in mechanical engineering with a focus on usability analysis from the University of Canterbury. He has worked as a user researcher in New Zealand, England, and Switzerland, where he helped Facebook and Google create products that make remote work more accessible and more productive. Rory continually seeks novel opportunities that allow him to learn and connect.
Tiago holds a Master’s Degree in Interaction Design and has over 16 years of experience in the Design and Advertising industries. He believes that UX Design can be used as a tool to elevate brands through intuitive, meaningful, customer-centric digital experiences. Through his work, he helps to translate data and research into accurate design decisions that drive conversion and help users to meet their goals.
Jeanine is responsible for developing the Service Design practice and leading service design initiatives. Previously, Jeanine was Director of Design at IBM for Cloud Platform Services leading the design and development of DevOps products and services. She brings systems thinking and applied creativity methods to early stage innovation, product and service strategy, strategic planning, and human-centered business transformation. She has led customer experience and digital product/service development initiatives for Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries. Jeanine earned a Bachelors of Arts in Economics from Boston College, and a Masters in Communication Design from Boston University.
Liz is a change-maker + design leader passionate about creating experiences that meet the needs of all users, regardless of ability. She currently leads the Design Thinking team at U.S. Bank - a group who empowers + supports internal teams as they apply Design Thinking through training, coaching and strategic engagement. As a design strategy team, they also leverage methods such as the GV Design Sprint to frame-up innovative opportunities and get them on the roadmap. With a background in user research + design strategy, Liz has held research and design roles at Scottrade, Facebook and a fully-remote financial education startup. Proudly rooted in the Midwest, she's a wannabe astrologer, gardener + part-time interior designer.
Harshit is a Design Thinker by Profession, Digital by Blood, but above all, an Entrepreneur by Passion. His core strength lies in transforming businesses and getting them ready for this digital era, by leveraging new-age tech. His 3 half-decade avatars have been about building Scalable Consumer Internet Products, Innovation & Change Management, & Creating Differentiated Monetization Business Models. His learnings from unsuccessful projects, pivoting start-ups and pathbreaking work make him a riveting storyteller & an award-winning digital leader both fused in one. The 2 things he takes pride in? His ability to learn-unlearn-relearn & putting method to the madness.
Adam is the founder of Treehouse Innovation, and one of the creators of Sprintbase - the virtual design thinking platform. He has spent most of his career helping companies design new products, services and strategies, and develop their internal design capability. Over the last two decades, Adam has led numerous innovation projects and transformation initiatives for organisations including Sony Playstation, Deloitte, NBCUniversal, SKY, DLA Piper, and eBay. In recent years, Adam’s focus has been on helping remote teams apply the process, tools and mindsets of design thinking in a virtual context. Adam is a frequent lecturer on innovation and design thinking at the University of Cambridge where he works in partnership with the Møller Institute to support leadership teams from across sectors to foster thriving cultures of innovation within their organizations.
Jose Coronado is the VP and Head of DesignOps at JPMorgan. He helps UX teams amplify their impact and companies maximize the business value of investing in design. As a consultant, his work includes projects with organizations like McKinsey, Accenture, Aquent, Bain Capital and AIG among others. Jose’s career includes leadership roles with Fortune 500 companies like ADP, Oracle and AT&T. He is the managing editor of Design Impact a digital publication where he shares leadership lessons from emerging and established design leaders around the world. Jose is a sought-after international speaker and workshop facilitator. Jose earned a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, and a Master of Fine Arts in Design from the University of Kansas.
Roman is currently UX Design Systems Lead at Credit Suisse. He is responsible for managing how high quality, digitally optimized, user-centric solutions can be delivered at scale, across all global entities of the organisation via the creation of supporting tools and services, such as design pattern libraries, playbooks, and training and coaching. He is a certified facilitator for the LEGO Serious Play method, teaches at universities, writes regularly about his work and is an avid drummer.
A creator of innovative service environments, Giovanni has guided cross-functional teams with competing priorities through complex engagements to achieve shared organizational goals. Giovanni has led design strategy engagements bringing a customer-centered approach to financial and enterprise software organizations with a focus on end-to-end service interactions. His ability to synthesize valuable nuggets of information from the many hours of research have provided alternate and compelling scenarios to services and products. Giovanni has worked as a design strategy lead on a variety of client engagements for Target, Audi, IBM, Microsoft, GE Capital, CPG brands, Insurance, and Financial clients. Giovanni holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design from School of Visual Arts and a Masters in Interactive Telecommunication from New York University.
Saleema Vellani is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, international keynote speaker, and the author of Innovation Starts With I. She is the Founder and CEO of Ripple Impact, which empowers, educates, and connects idealists, innovators, and entrepreneurs so they can increase their influence and maximize their impact. She also teaches Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins University and is an Innovation Strategist at the World Bank.
Maria is leading a service design initiative to improve clients’ and employees’ experience at JPMorgan. Having previously worked as a consultant she gained experience across a variety of organisations within different industries e.g. transportation, healthcare and telecommunications. Working on policy making for the British Government equipped her with skills for successfully transforming large organisations. She is interested in healthcare innovations and is the author of a book about Synthesia a neurological phenomenon which was published in Germany. Maria studied in Germany and Italy and graduated as a Communications Designer. She currently is studying towards her Psychology degree and decided to carry on studying forever.
Azadeh is the Director of Client Experience Design and Insights at RBC. She's part of the Experience Design Team where she creates journeys of discovery and innovation to help internal teams create experiences and strategies that are differentiating. As an innovation strategy consultant over the years, Azadeh helped numerous organizations from multiple industries better understand their customers, reach new insights and create innovative solutions and strategies by using the Design Thinking and human centered design methodology. Azadeh is an MBA graduate from the Rotman School of Management in Toronto — specialized in Design Thinking, Innovation and Strategy with a background in marketing and branding, Psychology and Visual Arts.
Julia is an academic, journalist, design thinker and entrepreneur. She leads the Academy of Design Thinking, helping organisations create innovation skills and capabilities, and adopt a design led culture. Her career started in academia, with a Ph.D in Linguistics, and moved to journalism, working for the BBC for 16 years as a broadcaster, producer, editor and senior leader. After a gap year of study in Design Thinking Innovation and Entrepreneurship at CSM and London Business School, she co-founded and managed the Future of Work Research Consortium, and founded the Academy of Design Thinking. She has worked with more than 100 companies across a wide range of industries. Julia teaches Design Thinking and Foresight & Strategy at Loughborough University London and Design Thinking Accelerator at Central Saint Martins, University of Arts. She lives in London.
27 years of experience has afforded me the opportunity to conceptualize, creative direct, project manage and design for marketing campaigns in the following industries: Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, Financial Services, Telecommunications, B2B/B2C, Retail, Consumer Foods, Packaging, and Publishing. As a people person and steward of creative collaboration, I genuinely believe that a great idea can be discovered in the most unexpected ways, from the most unexpected sources. I approach every print and/or digital campaign with one goal: to develop creative solutions that go way beyond expectations, ultimately leading to maximized ROI. What it comes down to is that I am passionate about conquering creative challenges. That's what gets me out of bed. That said, I feel extremely accountable for the successful delivery of every creative project I work on, which is something I take quite seriously...well, not too seriously.
Currently innovating within Fintech as UX Lead for Somo Global’s US contingent, Eric’s industry-spanning experience as designer, arts researcher, educator, and entrepreneur includes clients such as Audi, Volkswagen Credit, NASA, the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the National Science Foundation. He is a TEDCO Innovation Initiative and CMS Honor award recipient and in his spare time enjoys playing guitar, woodturning, and smoking delectable meats.
Paola is the Head of Design culture at Lloyds Banking group. In this role she works with Design leaders and key stakeholders to develop a Design-led culture in the organisation to help the bank to transform and adapt to constantly changing customer expectations and needs. Paola’s team also supports more than 350 Designers with a variety of Designs disciplines to grow and develop, working in collaboration with the guilds of each discipline to define the best learning approach. Paola joined the group as the Head of Design strategy to help bridge the gap between business and customer needs. Previously, she has been designing multi-channel experiences for multinational companies in different sectors since 2000, including telecommunications, government, banking and insurance, travel, and retail. She has a special passion for customer experience, creativity, innovation, and process improvement.
Zahraa Dagher supports individuals and organizations to answer complex questions. In her capacity as a Management Consultant and certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Zahraa worked with global clients across 5 continents where she spearheaded teams ranging from 3 to 300 members. As the Founder of Third Thunder, she aims to enable aspiring professionals and organizations to thrive at their workplace and envision better futures. Zahraa was named by the World Economic Forum as a Global Shaper where she co-founded the Nashville chapter of the organization. She graduated with a master’s degree in Leadership and Organizational Behavior from Vanderbilt University, was handpicked for a Stanford University innovation fellowship and received the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. She also has a bachelor’s in Architecture which unconventionally trained her to be a design thinker and innovative strategist. Currently, based in Chicago, IL, Zahraa is a global citizen who finds thrill in working with leaders across the globe and solving the world’s most complex problems.
