Expert Consultation

Independent senior guidance for a specific decision, business problem, product, service, strategy, or organizational challenge.

This may include an expert review of an existing experience, critique of a proposed direction, assessment of research or strategy, help with a difficult decision, or a second opinion before a significant investment.

Problem Discovery

An athnography research-led engagement for situations where the real problem is unclear, contested, fragmented, or still based largely on assumptions.

Discovery can combine business framing, user interviews, ethnographic observation, contextual research, workflow and ecosystem analysis, user feedback, and usability assessment of an existing product or service.

The outcome is a clear synthesis of evidence: the underlying problem, unmet needs, tensions, opportunity areas, strategic priorities, and a recommended direction for what should happen next.

From Discovery to Solution

A complete engagement that takes a complex challenge from the initial business question through research, strategic direction, concept creation, prototyping, evaluation, and implementation guidance.

The work begins with discovery rather than a predetermined solution. Evidence is translated into clearly framed opportunities, explored through multidisciplinary ideation, and made tangible through journeys, service concepts, interaction models, and prototypes.

Concepts are then evaluated with users, stakeholders, and delivery partners where appropriate. The final outcome may include a validated solution direction, an MVP definition, a roadmap, a business case, or clear recommendations for implementation.

Building Design Organizations

Support for organizations that want to establish, strengthen, or reposition design as a meaningful contributor to product, service, and business decision-making.

Drawing on extensive experience building and leading design capability at Novartis and across other enterprise environments, I can help define team structures, roles, operating models, research practices, governance, hiring priorities, leadership routines, and collaboration with product, technology, and business functions.

The engagement can also include mentoring design leaders, developing internal capability, reviewing portfolios and roadmaps, and creating the conditions in which design can produce sustained organizational value.

Design Thinking Training and Lectures

Practical education for executives, teams, universities, and conferences that want to understand how design thinking works beyond templates and workshop rituals.

Topics can include ethnographic observation, empathy beyond assumptions, problem framing, avoiding premature closure, multidisciplinary ideation, prototyping, evaluation, enterprise application, and the changing role of design in the age of generative AI.

Drawing from University Engagements at Stanford, UNYP, and VSE, formats range from executive lectures and conference presentations to half-day, full-day, or multi-session applied training using a real organizational challenge.