Speakers
Bill Scott
Senior Director of User Interface Engineering, PayPal
Bill Scott is the Sr. Director of UI Engineering at PayPal. In a past life he co-created one of the first successful Macintosh games (GATO, 1985), built & designed wargaming interfaces for NATO, led user experience teams (Sabre, Meebo), co-wrote one of the first Ajax/JavaScript frameworks (OpenRico), managed user interface engineering organizations (Netflix, PayPal) and published a design pattern library (Yahoo!). Bill is also a frequent speaker at conferences & workshops worldwide as well as the co-author of the O’Reilly book Designing Web Interfaces. Follow Bill’s tweets @billwscott and his ramblings on looksgoodworkswell.com.
Farrah Bostic
Founder, The Difference Engine
Farrah Bostic is the founder of Brooklyn-based innovation research and strategy company The Difference Engine. She was first a creative and then a strategist at some of the best agencies in the world (Wieden + Kennedy, TBWA\Chiat\Day, Mad Dogs & Englishmen, Digitas) on some of the most well-known brands in the world (Apple, Microsoft, Disney, Samsung, UPS). She ran innovation at Hall & Partners, and developed digital tools for online qualitative research as SVP, Consumer Immersion at OTX. Before starting The Difference Engine, she was VP Group Planning Director and mobile strategy lead at Digitas in New York.
Emily Holmes
Director of K12 User Experience, Hobsons
Emily is the Director of K12 User Experience for Hobsons, Inc. where she manages a team of user experience designers and human factors specialists to support SaaS products that are used by over 5 million K12 students in more than 80 countries.
A visual designer and entrepreneur, she has previously been an exhibit and graphic designer for an interactive children's science museum, an IA and front-end developer for a Fortune 5000 company, the founder and partner in a successful web consulting business, and the proprietor of a stained glass studio that designed, produced and sold glass giftware to galleries and catalog companies around the world.
Emily has a BA from Duke University and will be completing her MS in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley University this spring.
Ben Burton
Software Engineer & UX Specialist, Neo
Ben Burton is a software engineer at Neo. He has been professionally writing software since 2008, and has been involved in doing Lean software/product execution and ideation for the past 3 years at Neo and previously TheLadders. Ben has experience working with Ruby, Javascript, Java, Python and Scala.
Jono Mallanyk
Senior Designer, Neo
Jono Mallanyk is a Senior Designer at Neo, a global product innovation agency helping to put lean concepts into practice for both entrepreneurs and the enterprise. Since 2001, he's worked in technology building products and teams with a focus on user experience and interaction design.
Andrew Crow
Director of User Experience and Brand, GE
Andrew is the Experience Design Director for GE’s Design & Experience group where he helps lead GE's global experience, strategy and brand efforts.
He has 20 years of experience in visual, interaction, and product design, giving him a deep perspective on creating meaningful experiences for consumers. Andrew has led design teams on projects for both enterprise clients and startups; he is passionate about designing products and services that delight people and exceed business expectations.
Prior to GE, Andrew was VP of Mobile Strategy and Experience at Razorfish, and a Lead Experience Designer for Adaptive Path.
He likes to poke things with sticks.
Lionel Mohri
Design Strategist, Intuit Design Innovation Group
Lionel Mohri is a design strategist at Intuit. As part of the Design Innovation Group, he builds innovation capabilities throughout the organization to help teams and leaders create great product experiences. He not only works closely with senior leadership to shape strategic change initiatives, but spends a great deal of his time coaching frontline employees working on product and marketing. Prior to Intuit, Lionel spent almost seven years at global consultancy firm IDEO as a senior project manager. He led large culture change projects with the likes of LG, Intel, Kaiser, TSA and other large government agencies.
Cody Evol
UI Designer, PayPal
Cody Evol is a Lead UI Designer at PayPal and alum of Arizona State University. He has been working in the field of User Experience design for more than 10 years.
Cody led the transformation of the PayPal UED team from Waterfall to Lean UX and has the scoop on what it takes to move lean in a large organization. One of these projects was the complete redesign of PayPal’s checkout product, which generates 75% of the company’s revenue. He has been involved in hosting World Usability Day for the past two years in Phoenix and is actively involved in local events in the Bay Area. Follow him on Twitter!
Jessie Shternshus
Founder, Improv Effect
As the founder and owner of The IMPROV EFFECT, Jessie weds her lifelong passion for and expertise in applied improvisation with the fast pace and ever changing demands of the corporate world. She travels worldwide creating powerful learning environments for developers and designers that will enable them to become better listeners, team players, problem solvers, innovators and collaborators.
Throughout her career, Jessie has worked with companies such as Microsoft, Skype, Living Social, Expedia, Celgene, Fidelity Investments and Getty Images. Jessie has also been speaker at conferences such as Madison Ruby, Conferencia Rails, UXMad, SnowMobile, Codemash, Scrum Alliance, and Agile DC. To find out more go to www.improveffect.com
Aaron Sanders
Co-founder and coach at Co-makers
Jeff Hutkoff
Mobile Products Manager at The Weather Channel
