Jury Alumni

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  Natalie Nixon, Ph.D.

  Founder, Figure 8 Thinking

  2022 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Natalie Nixon is the creativity whisperer to the C-suite, helping leaders make better business decisions through wonder and rigor. At Figure 8 Thinking she’s a creativity strategist, global keynote speaker and author of the award winning The Creativity Leap. Real Leaders named Natalie one of the top 50 keynote speakers of 2022 and she’s been featured in Forbes and Fast Company. She received her BA from Vassar College, and her PhD from the University of Westminster. These days you can find her on the ballroom floor fine-tuning her cha-cha and foxtrot. Learn more at figure8thinking.com and follow her @natwnixon.

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  Kevin Bethune

  Founder and Chief Creative Officer, dreams • design + life

  2022 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Kevin Bethune is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a "think tank" that delivers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. Kevin's background spans engineering, business and design in equal proportion over his 25+ year career, positioning him to help brands deliver meaningful innovations to enrich people's lives.
  
  His work represents creative problem-solving that brings multidisciplinary teams together to see the future through an open aperture, and a deep industrial design approach to inform and influence desirable, feasible and business-viable design outcomes.
  
  Kevin began his career as a mechanical engineer in the nuclear power industry. This chapter gave him deep product experience working with high performing teams across 14 nuclear reactor upgrade campaigns. After his MBA, Kevin joined Nike, Inc. in a business capacity, but quickly navigated to the Global Footwear product engine to drive advanced digital product creation capabilities, discovering the world of design in the process. After solidifying his creative foundation through further studies at ArtCenter College of Design, Kevin co-founded distinct design & innovation capabilities at two Tier 1 management consulting firms in Booz & Co. and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). As Vice President of Strategic Design at BCG Digital Ventures, he led a large cohort of designers that would influence and shape every corporate venture spun out from the incubator. Kevin left BCG Digital Ventures to carve his own path under the banner of dreams • design + life, focusing on unlocking human potential through strategic design, industrial design and the building of new ecologies.
  
  Kevin also serves as a Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and a Board Director for the Design Management Institute (DMI).

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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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  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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  Emily Privot McNamara

  Senior Researcher, Industrial Design, Amazon

  2021 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Emily Privot McNamara is a Senior Researcher on the hardware (ID) research team at Amazon, where she works on evaluating existing products and framing challenges around people’s behaviors and interests to identify new opportunities. Prior to Amazon, Emily's career began as an architectural designer working on projects ranging from high-end retail environments to local non-profit urban streetscape improvements. From there she pivoted into design strategy to create things on a faster timeline, and focus on work that applied user needs with business goals and the application of thoughtful design. She began her strategy career as an intern at fuseproject and graduated to hold the position of design strategist at Native Design and VBP Orange.
  
  Recently, Emily has been learning a lot about anthropometry and is applying her passion and specific interests in health/wellness and the older adult population to her work at Amazon.

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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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  Michal Levin

  VP of Product, Hero

  2021 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Michal is the VP of Product at Hero, aiming to help people manage their health better, and live their lives to the fullest. She is passionate about solving hard problems that make a difference in people’s lives, and in a career of over 15 years, led UX and product across Google, Verily Life Sciences, Zoox, modu and more. She authored the book "Designing Multi-Device Experiences" (O'Reilly Media) and several other publications, mentored dozens of startups, and spoke at local and global conferences. Also the mom of two toddlers, an avid audible listener and a big fan of live music shows.

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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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  Parul Vora

  Designer, Researcher, Technologist, User Experience Specialist, IDEO

  2021 Strategy & Research Jury Member

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  Jennifer Passas

  Brand Strategy Lead, Gensler

  2020 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Jennifer Passas is a brand and experience strategist from Vancouver who currently lives in New York City. She has a BA in Art History from the University of Victoria and a Masters in Branding from the School of Visual Arts. Currently a Brand Strategy Lead at Gensler, Jennifer spends her days thinking of ways brands can come to life through analog and digital experiences in the built environment. She has expertise in naming, trend reporting and is a writer for PSFK.

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  Philippe Ostiguy

  Brand & Creative Strategist, Exposure

  2020 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Philippe Ostiguy is a brand and creative strategist at Exposure and, previously, at 2x4. Current and past clients include Prada, Uniqlo, MAC Cosmetics, Converse and Second Stage Theater. He is interested in culture-making; in fandom; in the music, movies, art, and design that expand our imagination. Now based in New York City, he holds a Masters in Branding from the School of Visual Arts.

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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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  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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  Kristin Koch

  Freelance Product Designer

  2019 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Kristin is a product designer based in New York. Before transitioning into a product design role, she worked as a User Experience Researcher at Facebook and Refinery29. She is passionate about mission-driven technology and in her free time volunteers as a designer for Tech of Campaigns, an organization that connects tech workers with state-level political campaigns.

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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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  Tatyana Mamut

  Former Product Exec at Amazon, Salesforce, IDEO, CultureRisk.com

  2018 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Tatyana Mamut is a transformative leader, product innovator, and economic anthropologist.
  
  She is General Manager & Director of Product at Amazon Web Services, where she is driving the development of a revolutionary new digital product. Before that, she was Vice President & Head of Product Experience for the Salesforce IoT Cloud, a big data, real-time event processing platform. She also led Salesforce’s Re-Invention of the premier CRM product, culminating in the “Lightning Experience.”
  
  Tatyana also built and led the Organization Design Practice at global design firm IDEO. She led many high-stakes IDEO engagements including the creation of digital tools to drive citizen engagement and cultural transformation for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, development and scaling of a User-Centered Innovation Culture at Life Technologies, and the Human Centered Design (HCD) Toolkit for the Gates Foundation. She has also founded two successful consulting businesses, Emergent Thinking and CS Solutions. She has won numerous design awards for her work at IDEO and holds multiple design patents for her work at Salesforce and Amazon.
  
  Tatyana has a PhD in economic anthropology from UC Berkeley and a BA in economics from Amherst College. She is a keynote speaker at global conferences and lectures at the Stanford D-School, focusing on technology & innovation — as well as the role of leadership & culture in creating and sustaining long-term competitive advantage in a rapidly-changing world.