Jury Alumni

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  Lionel Mohri

  VP of Design, Intuit Innovation Practices, Intuit

  2018 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Lionel is an innovation leader with a proven track record in large, complex organizations. He is passionate about galvanizing organizations around bold, customer-driven visions and empowering teams to do the best work of their lives. Currently the head of innovation at Intuit, Lionel leads a team of designers, researchers, marketers and storytellers to fuel innovation across the Small Business Group. Prior to joining Intuit in 2011, Lionel spent seven years at global innovation consultancy IDEO.

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  Gabriel Valdivia

  Lead Designer, Jigsaw

  2019 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Gabe is a Cuban Product Designer based in New York, currently exploring how technology could make people safer at Jigsaw. Prior to that, he explored social VR and content creation at Facebook, as well as smart driving at Automatic. He’s passionate about design mentorship, empowering diverse perspectives, and creating transformative experiences through the power of storytelling.

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  Desmond Dickerson

  Director, Future of Work Marketing, Microsoft

  2022 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Desmond Dickerson is Director, Future of Work at Microsoft. He studies trends and market forces to help people understand how work is changing and what is required for them to adapt and thrive in this new world.

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  Maria Silva

  Brand Strategist & Senior Designer, Mucca Design

  2020 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Maria Silva's passion is discovering the compelling kernel of truth at the root of each brand and using it to create a unique story. In addition to being a brand strategist at Mucca Design, she is an award-winning designer, with recognition from CommArts, TDC, LAD, and BID, and a master’s degree in brand strategy from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Some of her recent clients include Union Square Hospitality, WeWork, 7Fresh, Fairway, and Ficosota.

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  Paul Gardien

  Vice President, Philips Design

  2016 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Paul Gardien is Vice President of Philips Design and as member of the Philips Design Board responsible for both the strategic development of the global design function and the Design Research & Innovation program. In his strategy role, he has been instrumental in transforming Philips Design from a service unit into a global function. The Design Research & Innovation program creates new design competences, future visions and new propositions for Philips and has won numerous awards. The drive in the program is to create meaningful and relevant propositions based on a solid understanding of how these will evolve in the future, while ensuring that the propositions land in the various businesses increasing their hit rate of innovation.
  
  Paul has spent his entire professional career at Philips Design, working in many different areas ranging from product-, multimedia- and internet design, to different management and development functions. He is and has been a member of various boards, juried in multiple renowned design competitions. He’s also a frequent speaker at international design and innovation conferences. Paul studied industrial design engineering at the Delft University of Technology and holds a PhD in Design Innovation from the Eindhoven University of Technology.

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  Dr. Yoko Akama

  Senior Lecturer in Communication Design, RMIT University

  2015 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Dr. Yoko Akama is a Senior Lecturer in design in the School of Media and Communication and Research Leader of the Design Research Institute at RMIT University, Australia. Her Japanese heritage has embedded a Zen-informed reflective practice in human-centered design. Her design research practice is entangled in social 'wicked problems', to strengthen adaptive capacity for disaster resilience in Australia and Japan, and to contribute towards the efforts of Indigenous Nations enact their self-determination and governance. Trained as a communication designer, visualization features strongly in her work to catalyze meaning-making, learning and dialogue through participatory interactions. Yoko is a leader and founder of two prominent design networks – Service Design Network and Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab- in Melbourne, Australia. These are fostering a community of practice among academia, business, government and community organizations to share and create knowledge on human-centered design applications.She is a recipient of British Council Design Research Award (2008); a Finalist in the Victorian Premier's Design Award (2012); and two Good Design Australia Awards (2014), which has led to invitations for collaboration and guest lectures at several national and international institutions in the UK, US, Europe and Japan.

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  Nalini Kotamraju

  Vice President of User Research & Analytics, Salesforce

  2018 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Nalini P. Kotamraju is Vice President of User Research & Analytics at Salesforce, where she leads a cross-disciplinary team that drives insights for product design and development. She loves using data in all of its forms to create the best product experiences possible. Previously, she led user experience research at Microsoft Dynamics AX, Sun Microsystems Inc., and assorted dot.com companies. Nalini also worked in Denmark and the Netherlands as a professor of technology and society.
  
  Nalini earned her a B.A. in Social Studies and her B.A. in Women’s Studies from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley.

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  Denis Weil

  Interim Chief Innovation Officer, Sanergy

  2016 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Denis Weil is an Innovation Executive, Change Leader and “Social Creative” focused on propelling the impact of design and innovation in the social sector. As one of the private sector pioneers and thought-leaders in the field of service design, Denis is now applying his innovation leadership to social and civic innovation advising social and public organizations on how to reach impact at scale. He is currently a Senior Advisor for Innovation and New Services for Year Up, the leading workforce development social enterprise, and an Advisor for the Government Innovation team at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
  
  Denis’ passion is to advance the practice and impact of Design. In 2015 Denis was an Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University where he researched new ways to cross-pollinate the practices of Social Science and Design. A long-time adjunct professor at the Institute of Design at IIT in Chicago, Denis teaches classes in Service Design and Social Innovation. He is also a frequent speaker at innovation and design conferences and his viewpoints about the value of design for innovation have been published in ID magazine and Business Week.

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  Charles Erdman

  Head of Product Design, Small Planet

  2021 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Charley is a creative executive building value at the intersection of human behavior and technology. He sees his job as helping energize digital teams to imagine strategically; think laterally; and create efficiently. Charley has led cross-functional teams building digital products and communications for Fortune 500 clients such as Adobe, Microsoft, Charles Schwab, Comcast, Disney, Lucas Film, and Intuit. He learned his craft at world-class agencies like Ogilvy, Razorfish, the Amp Agency, CP+B, and now Brooklyn-based, Small Planet.

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  Barton Smith

  Product Designer, Spotify

  2019 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Barton is a Product Designer based in New York, many miles from his hometown in Australia. He's currently at Spotify designing creative tools for artists and previously worked at FiftyThree, Facebook and Fuseproject. He equally loves working on complex systems and dynamic interfaces, and spends a lot of time thinking about the movement of culture, trends and ideas.

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  Nicolas Maitret

  Senior Principle, SY Partners

  2017 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Nicolas leads projects at the intersection of innovation, branding and transformation, with deep expertise in both design and business strategy. Over the past 15 years, he has designed a wide range of products, services, and environments. At SYPartners, he’s helped IBM, AARP and Johnson & Johnson bring to life new visions for their businesses and brands; imagined customer experiences for Old Navy, Blue Shield, and Target; and designed exhibits for Nike and IBM. Nicolas served as creative director on IBM’s award-winning THINK exhibit, an immersive multimedia experience that commemorated the company’s centennial. The exhibit is now a permanent installation at Epcot.
  
  
  Prior to joining SYPartners, Nicolas was a product designer in France, where he worked on innovation projects with Alstom, Coca-Cola, France Telecom, and Umae, a fair-trade company specializing in handicraft products. Nicolas holds an MFA in industrial design from ENSCI, and an MBA from ESSEC Business School.

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  Farrah Bostic

  Founder, The Difference Engine

  2022 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Farrah Bostic is a champion of empathetic, co-creative, and collaborative strategy, design, and research. Her focus is on helping business leaders make big decisions, with research as an essential tool for facilitating decision-making, advocating for the customer, and delivering audience insight that field great storytelling.
  
  She was a Group Planning Director at Digitas, led the consumer immersion practice at Ipsos/OTX, led the innovation practice at Hall & Partners, and developed her skills as a strategist at Mad Dogs & Englishmen/Mad Logic and TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles.
  
  In 2011 she founded The Difference Engine, where she works with clients across business-to-business and business-to-consumer categories including JetBlue, HarperCollins, eBay, AARP, Google, the Financial Times, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PRX, New York Public Media, The US Soccer Federation, IHG, Citibank, and Dow Jones Media Group. She is also an advisor to twofivesix, a content agency focused on gamers as customers and gaming as a channel, where she mentors and leads a team of strategists and researchers with clients including Intel, Sansar, Soundcloud, and others.

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  Karina Totah

  Chief of Staff to the President & CMO, Thyme Care

  2021 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Karina Totah works to achieve greater equity in our cities and our healthcare system. Currently, she is Chief of Staff at Thyme Care, a startup that guides cancer patients through the complex healthcare system by providing personalized support, quality resources & quick access to high-value care. Prior, she was head of strategy for New York City Public Housing, the largest residential landlord in North America. Karina also practices as an end-of-life doula through her company, Nevit (www.nevit.net).

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  Harold G. Nelson

  Visiting Scholar, University of Montana, School of Computer Science

  2015 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Dr. Harold Nelson is a visiting scholar in the School of Computer Science at the University of Montana. He was the 2009-2010 Nierenberg Distinguished Professor of Design in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Dr. Nelson was the head of the Graduate Programs in Whole Systems Design (WSD) at Antioch University and has held teaching positions in several universities. He is a licensed architect in the State of California and worked as the assistant regional architect for the U.S. Forest Service in San Francisco, California.He is a past-president and a trustee of the International Society for Systems Science. He is the co-founding Director and President of the Advanced Design Institute and owner of Harold Nelson LLC; Organizational Design Competence. He has worked with a variety of organizations, including: non-profits and corporations, state and federal agencies, international governments and the United Nations.Dr. Nelson received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley where he designed his own graduate program in Social Systems Design. He received his Master of Architecture degree from U.C. Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Montana State University.

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  Malin Orebäck

  Vice President Design, Veryday

  2016 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Malin is leading the Veryday creative team with a focus on service business and customer experience. She is coaching the design and innovation teams to challenge customers and deliver world class, innovative and meaningful service and customer experience solutions. Responsible for building and supporting multidisciplinary teams to leverage the power of a people driven, engaging, innovation approach to explore and uncover solutions that are meaningful to people and that really can make a difference to individuals, environment, society and business.
  
  A strategist and team leader with 20+ years of consultancy experience from a wide range of industries, working with multinational clients on a daily basis. Lecturer, keynote speaker and advisor to global brands on customer experience, design strategy, and people driven innovation.

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  Eric Martinez

  Partner, Designing Change Lead, VSA Partners

  2017 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  For more than a decade, Eric has worked at the intersection of change management, brand strategy and marketing activation. Guided by the belief that individuals and institutions do their best work when aligned around ethical stories, Eric is committed to building brands and organizations that genuinely serve people. Among his most prominent clients are IBM, Alibaba, NVIDIA, Chanel, Cole Haan, BP and Target. Eric recently founded and leads the Designing Change practice at VSA Partners, where he and a team of business strategists, creatives and facilitators help transformation leaders in Fortune 1000 companies to design their futures.
  
  Prior to his current role, Eric launched and led the Strategy Practice at VSA. To tackle the multifaceted challenges faced by multinational brands today, he built a team of strategists with expertise in branding, design thinking, technology, market and user research, and advertising. During this time, Eric also worked closely with his partners at VSA to transform the company’s New York office from a regional, boutique design firm into a full service branding and technology shop.
  
  With a BA in Comparative Literature and Philosophy from NYU and an MA from the University of Chicago, Eric’s background in philosophy and literature form the foundation of his approach to problem solving and opportunity creation. An Entrepreneurship Coach at NYU’s Leslie eLab, Eric is also a guest lecturer in Design Thinking at NYU’s Stern School of Business.