Fail Faster

Denise Burchell is a creative leader with over 20 years of experience in human centered design. She has been on the Salesforce Design team for almost 3 years, where she champions Strategy Design and Relationship Design practices, and creates content and experiences to share them. Denise has a unique background, with a combination of consulting, product, and entrepreneurship roles that included 7 years at IDEO. Her sweet spot is in building and nurturing strategic teams that work at the intersection of design and business, where technology enables relationships with brands and other people. Denise lives life with intention, and loves bringing that lens to work.

Derek Boman is a design leader working in the fintech space. He's currently Director of Product Design at Avant, whose mission focuses on providing credit products to households underserved by the traditional banking system. In the evenings, he also teaches a 24-week online "Intro to UX" course. He's passionate about building and developing design teams, customer-centricity, and lifelong learning. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with his wife and 2 boys.

Isabel Harvey, Director of Innovation Experience Design at Travelers insurance joins us to share her unique journey from an Industrial designer to evolving into a design thinking practitioner. She connects her passion for a deep understanding of her stakeholders to curate areas of the most impact, she brings creative fun along the way as she executes her vision with her teams to create global products. Isabel is someone who embraces her diversity and thinks about the nuances of users from across the world as a responsible designer. There are some amazing resources she has shared in this episode that you don't want to miss.

Pranathi Vangeepuram is a Software Engineer with over 16 years of experience. A passionate technologist who likes to think out of the box and challenge the status quo. Currently leading product development of Digital Trial Management Suite (DTMS) for clinical trials at IQVIA. Her experience includes Commercial product development, legacy modernization and optimizing internal business operations leveraging technology. She enjoys building,mentoring and motivating teams. She was born and brought up in India, Pursued Bachelors in Electronics & Communications and Masters in Computer Science in the US. She is a Fitness freak ,Started biking and walking groups to have fun and workout at the same time with her close circle.

Michael Torpea joined Mastercard in February of 2017 as a UX contractor. Prior to Mastercard, he was an Interactive Art Director at Ansira Engagement Marketing and ran his own small web development business. During his tenure at Mastercard he helped the company mature the practice of UX within the Mastercard Technology group, create a positive culture within the Product Experience Design team, and establish operating model, design ops & design research playbooks for PXD. When he's not keeping busy with his wife, 4 daughters, 2 dogs, & a cat in a pear tree, you can find him fishing, learning some new technology or playing guitar.

Sean Brown, a creative designer with over 20 years of experience in digital, interactive, and web design; a thought leader in digital content and storytelling. Before joining Courageous, Sean was the creative/product director for Condé Nast's Style.com and Fairchild's Fashion Media Women's World Daily. During his tenure at Condé Nast under his design direction he helped them bridge the gap from print to digital with the development of their first native IOS app for Style.com in 2007, the first digital magazine edition for GQ in 2009 and the award-winning Epicurious cooking App, because of its success, it was selected by Steve Jobs to be one of a few, launch partners for the first iPad. Sean has received multiple awards for his work in UX UI and design including 2 Webby Awards. An Asme, and Condé Nast's first ever Innovator of the Year for his work with GQ. Sean's work at Courageous has earned him an Edward R Murrow, Silver Cannes Lion, and the first Anthem Award Silver for Diversity, Equity&;Inclusion, to name a few. Sean has been on the forefront of the adoption of emerging technology and leading ways to integrate it into his creative work. He continues to grow his work with purpose driving experiential design and event based marketing.

Milton Jackson was a native of Jamaica and was raised in Hartford, Connecticut. He holds a B.S. in History and Social Sciences from Eastern Connecticut State University and a Master's in Technology Entrepreneurship from the University of Maryland's Clark School of Engineering. Milton has created experiences within multiple industries at companies like ESPN, Travelers, Otis Elevators, and United Technologies and led user experience as AVP/Head of Digital Design at The Hartford. Currently, Milton is the SVP & Executive Director of Experience Design at Bank of America responsible for the banks' Wealth, Financial Wellness, Rewards/Deals, and Retirement digital experiences.

Rachel is an Executive Director of UX & Design at Vericast. Her passion is mentoring designers and building solid UX foundations with a research-based approach to fuel strategic growth. Over her long career as a UX & Design leader, she's worked at companies large and small, producing award-winning designs, growing collaborative teams, empowering design innovation, and crafting user experiences for a variety of products, applications, and brand identities.