
Jen is sought after for her 20+ years of experience as an Experience Design (XD) strategist, and for maturing enterprise XD teams. Throughout her career, Jen has made a study of how XD’s ways of working enable creativity and interdisciplinary design thinking. This has led her to become a passionate partner and coach of Design/Research Operations leaders to help them integrate human-centered mindsets in benefit realization.
She has worked in verticals such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, cyber security, and in complex business-to-business-to-consumer contexts.
She began her work life as a symphonic musician working in orchestras and chamber music groups where she first encountered the intuitive connection that musicians make with one another. Jen draws on those experiences to facilitate a similar type of collaboration for product teams and Design Ops clients that she calls “the experience of design.”
Professional Highlights
Certified SAFe PO/PM – leveraged to coach POs in integrating experience strategy with product strategy
Co-inventor on a portfolio of patents for an employee-facing knowledge management system for finserv/insurance industry firm
Speaking Engagements
- UX Hong Kong 2019, February 15 & 16
- UXPA International Conference, Rio Mar, Puerto Rico, June 2018 – Co-presenter with River Brandon, Design Director, Travelers – “Hold onto your hats: The Scaled Agile Framework might be a good thing for design.” Additional presentations of this talk were given as a webinar for UserZoom’s client webinar series and at UXPA Connecticut’s and Agile Hartford’s annual holiday event, both in 2018
- Make Meaningful Work, Brighton, UK, June 2018 – Co-presenter with Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong, founders of Apogee Consulting, UX Hong Kong, and Make Meaningful Work
- UXPA Boston Workshop, Boston, MA, November 11, 2017 – Make Meaningful Work by Designing Successful Product Teams, Co-facilitator with Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong, founders of Apogee Consulting and UX Hong Kong
- Mad*Pow’s Financial Experience Design conference, Boston, MA, November 7, 2017 – Panel moderated by Adam Connor – From Innovation to Execution
- UXPA Boston Annual Conference, Boston, MA, May 2017 – User Research for Agile Teams panel with Chris Chiusano, Jen McGinn, Sarah Bloomer, Luis Valencia
- TechSpring Healthcare Innovation Incubator – Guest Speaker at a networking event, December 2016
- UX Hong Kong, March 2015 and CT UXPA, Hartford, CT, February 2015 – Creativity, Imagination, and Innovation Workshop
- Boston Front End of Innovation Conference 2014 – Co-presentation: “Tapping into the Inner Innovator: Inspiring Employees to Think Differently”
- UXPA Boston User Experience Conference 2013 – The Shoemaker’s Son Needs Shoes: Designing a User Experience Practice Within the Enterprise Setting
- UPA Boston Conference 2011 – Co-presentation on Localization Research