AI & Product Guest Speaking & Roundtables with product leaders.

Always learning, sharing

From lighting talks to roundtables, I enjoy contributing to product and CX leadership spaces. A passion for discussions on what others are facing. I’m curious to learn and develop from what other product leaders are finding as solutions for their team, their customers, and their business.

I host a cohort of product leaders in sharing their challenges and opportunities to grow for personal and team betterment. I am also a member of the Inside/Out Leadership community in the Midwest.

Leadership topic I have spoken on:

Product Strategy, Product Design, Research, AI Ethics, AI Optimizations, Student Mentoring

Recent Leadership Speaking Events

  • ProdCon 2025: Applying Product AI Customer-Obsessed Approach

    ProdCon 2025: Applying Product AI Customer-Obsessed Approach

    Moderating/speaking in a roundtable on Customer-Obsessed Approach to Product Development and AI. Offering opportunities to explore AI challenges, share ideas, and answer attendee questions.

    Register
  • UIUC SCD UX Days 2025

    Conveying your human value (without losing your humanity)

    For UIUC’s UX Days 2025, reviewed with immense compassion the anxiety in finding a job today including: Understanding the market today, What it takes to get a job today, Your first 90 days in a job.

    Presentation
  • A person is standing at a city street window watching digital cityscape projections. The image includes a text overlay promoting a CX roundtable event on March 21st.

    Trending Projections in CX'24

    CX programs are expanding in scope, yet budgets and staffing has continued to lag. Get ready for the coming year with insights on 2024 predictions. From Forrester’s research, they are predicting 2024 CX global average scores will improve for the first time in three years.

    Eventbrite
  • A promotional graphic for a monthly roundtable event hosted by Michigan State University about customer experience, featuring a photo of speaker Josh Nard, with event details and university logos.

    CXM@MSU Roundtable: Productizing CX w/ Pivotal Moments™

    Sharing his insights from fifteen years of creating journey maps with his own Pivotal Moments™ framework started in 2016. He will share how to “productize” customer moments into requirements that prioritize for successful business outcomes.

    Register Here
  • Digital graphic promoting an online event titled "Hearthside Session: The Value of Design" featuring photos of Lindsey MacNeil and Josh Nard with event details including date, September 21, 2023, time, 12:00 PM ET, and online format.

    Leadership in CX and Product Design

    An upcoming “Hearthside” session is planned for September 21st to discuss with other product and CX leaders the challenges we are facing in today’s changing organizations.

    Eventbrite
  • Promotional digital graphic for a presentation on designing for generative AI, scheduled for September 28th at 6 PM at DePaul University, 14 East Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, IL. The background features a dark blue gradient with colorful network and particle graphics, including a connection to industry titans. Logos for XDA Chicago and DePaul University are at the bottom.

    IXDA Chicago Meetup: Designing for Generative AI

    A panel discussion with other AI leaders to delve into the “profound impact on shaping captivating digital interactions… anyone eager to revolutionize the way we perceive and interact with the digital world.”

    IxDA Meet-up
  • Advertisement for a CX Identity Crisis event featuring speakers Shelly Chandler and Mark Staudinger, scheduled for September 14th via Zoom at 9am PST / 11am CST, with a background image of two women with half of their faces painted or wearing masks.

    CX Identity Crisis: The Ever-Evolving Perception of Experience

    Moderator for two guest speakers in our monthly roundtable on identity crisis within customer experienec.

    CX Roundtables
  • A man standing on a stage with a microphone, delivering a presentation or speech, with a large screen displaying text in the background that reads, "Why is it so hard? We plan, design, deploy." The stage has a brick wall on the left and a curtain on the right, with musical or technical equipment on the floor.

    CX Forums | Chicago

    15-minute guest speaker on “Having a moment with your customers” that will outline how you can better evaluate products with customer experiences with practical takeaways.

    CX Forum

Leadership Speaking Creds:

  • 1. Product Strategy Leader

    Since 2010, I’ve led 27 product/app transformations. At United, Ied product teams on 13 applications.

    Vision, strategy and management are tied to both business and user research for confidence in roadmaps and deployments.

  • 2. Design Leader

    Leading teams since 2008. Hired, led, and mentored over 60 designers and content strategists for last 16 years.

    This includes working in-house and agency teams across business, marketing and development.

  • 3. Design Systems

    Beginning with my first design systems in 2014 (T-Mobile’s Rebellion), I’ve created and managed five design systems for product design teams for effectively scaling multi-branded experiences.

    This includes Figma-developed systems with semantic and tokenized systems for (Angular, React) development.

  • 4. Experience Service Design

    Defined Accenture’s first (2012) practice in Journey Mapping. Since then, created and implemented nearly dozen omnichannel journeys to coordinate and prioritize products.

    A decade-long Pivotal Moments (TM) framework for cross-functional teams.

  • 5. UXR, CX, and Business Research

    For 18 years, I’ve led research teams on research, analytics, customer experience gaps (service design), and competitive business analysis.

    Connected “could into should” product metrics with roadmaps for greater adoption.

  • 6. GenAI & LLM Personalization

    Beginning with 2019’s first certification in AI, I now hold six including prompt engineering, GenAI, and AI PM. I’ve read five books and listened to dozens of talks.

    Consulted and directly led personalization work for nearly a dozen CMOs.

  • 7. eCommerce & Omnichannel

    Delivered or redesigned 9 commerce platforms including leadership for Samsung N.A. and Amway.

    Led analytics and segmentation teams for F100 cos, continuously optimized engagement in journeys and wallet share/cart optimizations.

  • 8. Business Leadership

    Working on an MBA, I hold a few certifications specializing in business strategy and management.

    With sixteen years of business-driven omnichannel service blueprints, I’ve developed a practice for managing product teams.

2025: Designed by Leadership Cohort

Seeking a private group of product and CX leaders who wish to share their leadership experiences alongside online iMBA training.

 

Next Cohort starting Dec. 30st.

With a dedication be a better leader after 15 years, I’ve signed up for a series of UIUC coursera courses on leadership. Collecting other voices interested in sharing their experiences. The goal is to review courses and meet every other week for an hour after work. We’ll discuss our experiences in leading with empathy, inclusion, and broader team growth. Join with an open mind and a willingness to be vulnerable.

  • Dedicate 3-4 hours a week to review the materials outlined in the courses. I will post a weekly schedule connected to the training.

  • We ask that out of respect for everyone’s time, put the emails down and lean in for an hour. It’s amazing what happens when you lean in and even raise your hand to contribute.

  • When you raise your hand, it’s not about being right., it’s sharing your point of view of what has or hasn’t worked and why. This is the purpose of the cohort.

Note: Pro-bono/free. I am seeking shared leadership insights from others during my training for the hopeful benefit of everyone who joins.

U of Illinois Geis Business School Curriculum:

  • In this foundational course, you will be challenged to develop as a leader. You will explore the concept of leadership, assess required competencies for today's leaders, learn more about yourself and how you can make effective and ethical decisions, identify how to build trusting relationships with others, and articulate a practice for growing as a leader.

  • In this foundational course, you will immerse yourself in the idea of building effective team cultures. You will explore different facets of team culture that are at the root of effective teams. You'll learn more about cultures of safety, engagement, and growth, so that you can lead your teams toward cultures that facilitate the most effective teamwork.

  • Organizations are complex and can be difficult to manage well, so managers need tools to help them better understand and deal with the many complexities and challenges associated with organizational life. In this course, you will learn theories, principles, and frameworks that will help you design more effective organizations.

  • This course is intended to help you become a better manager by helping you more fully understand and deal with the complexities and challenges associated with managerial life in organizations. You will learn theories, principles, and frameworks that will help you more effectively manage and lead your organizations.

  • In this course you will learn how organizations create, capture, and maintain value. In doing so, you’ll develop an understanding of how and why this process is fundamental for sustainable competitive advantage. You will be able to better understand value creation, and capture and learn the tools to analyze both competition and cooperation from a variety of perspectives, including the industry-level (e.g., five forces analysis) and the firm-level (e.g., business models and strategic positioning).

  • In this course you will learn how corporations create, capture, and maintain value, going beyond the management of a single line of business. It is thus a complement to (and should typically follow) a course on Business Strategy, which focuses on developing and sustaining competitive advantage for a single business unit. Here, you will be able to better understand and learn the tools to analyze and manage decisions from a corporate-level perspective, which emphasizes the management of multiple businesses and multiple stakeholders. Examples of such decisions include vertical integration, diversification, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, international expansion, global strategy, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility.

Seeking those who lead teams, big or small.

Director

CXO

Manager

CMO

Lead

Head of

VP

Sr. Manager

Director CXO Manager CMO Lead Head of VP Sr. Manager

1: Sign-up for Coursera - monthly or yearly.

Monthly programs are at $39.99.

Coursera Sale

2: Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization

Enroll and begin learning Leadership and Business Skills. Apply practical strategies to becoming a more effective team leader. Coures can also be applied toward an iMSM and iMBA if interested.

Coursera Enroll
Online Meeting

3: Join our Leadership Training Cohort

Upon joining a series of inexpensive coursera leadership courses, join others for a diversity of sharing experiences in persuit of greater leadership.

This is a set of cohort meetings in parallel with the training to discuss our collective growth. We respect the diversity and inclusion with no agenda other than the lessons learned. Sign-up below!

Wait… what exactly again is required to join the cohort?

  1. Be a leader. A product, design or CX leader who has at least led one team member for 18 months. Why? We are looking for people in the industry who are actively managing others who can provide real-world experience.

  2. Pay Coursera either a yearly (recommended based on current sale) or monthly fee. They offer trial periods as well. It’s up to you, but consider that the six leadership courses will span a couple of months.

  3. Enroll in the first course, Leading Teams: Developing as a Leader for January. (any date will suffice)

  4. Sign-up for the leadership cohort (below) to receive emails with a posted schedule. Tentative start dates for our first learning cohort is January 31st depending on sign-ups. You can certainly begin as soon as you would like and making notes ahead of our (TBD posted) discussions.

  5. Commit to allocating time to review the online lectures and making notes.

  6. Show up to our cohort every other week after work. Your shared contribution is to everyone’s benefit - as well your own.

  7. If you have questions, contact me in the site’s link.

Join a leadership training cohort.

Make a commitment to yourself in 2024 to be a better leader. Interested? Join a UIUC leadership online training cohort featured on Coursera and learn with others in mutual growth.

Your email will remain private and will not be used for other purposes or sold.

I am not affiliated with Coursera or the University of Illinois Geis program at this time.

 

CX Roundtables

(Retired after 19 events)

A monthly roundtable of product design leaders sharing current challenges, trends and necessary opportunities to improve customer experience in organizations.

 

A group of thought leaders who may call themselves curious, eager to learn more, and not afraid to be wrong. They don’t believe they have the whole picture, but they do know a piece of the puzzle. Joining our roundtable, we ask you to lean in, raise your hand, and learn something new.

Our Roundtable Culture

  • We believe that what people share within their organization should be considered private. If we take any summarized notes, we do NOT quote people. In the spirit of sharing truthful ideas, we ask your respect who is sharing them.

  • We ask that out of respect for everyone’s time, put the emails down and lean in for an hour. It’s amazing what happens when you lean in and even raise your hand to contribute.

  • When you raise your hand, it’s not about being absolutely right. It’s about bringing a point of view of what has or hasn’t worked and why. We recognize that there is no absolute.

NOTE: This CX leadership roundtable was retired in 2024. Look for prior meeting summaries to be posted at a TBD time in 2025.

Online Meeting

CX Ops Online Community

Where ever you may work, your education, your diversity of thought is championed here. What ever has or has not worked well for you, we come together to learn and grow.

We respect that expertise diversity allows us to be educated in a greater truth.

Roundtable Member Titles

CMO

Service Designer

CXO

Experience Designer

Customer Service Manager

CRM Director

Customer Support Director

VP of Experience

Design Director

CX Change Management

UX Designer

Engagement Director

CMO Service Designer CXO Experience Designer Customer Service Manager CRM Director Customer Support Director VP of Experience Design Director CX Change Management UX Designer Engagement Director

Real-time Community Trends

During our community meet-ups, we sometimes will use confidential online tools to poll the attendees on topical matters being discussed.

In this meeting we learned that their organizational structure was the most significant impact to their CX initiatives.

CX Roundtable Topics

  • Brand Foresight

    The CX vision is the reason why your brand exists for customers or businesses it serves. It is a collective goal for employees can rally towards with prioritization, decision, and overall investment in the customer.

  • Charting Barriers

    CX barriers are friction points or obstacle that prevents customers, employees or their culture from achieving success. Some are perceived barriers and others are real constraints. When these are identified and solved for without ignorance, growth and direction accelerates.

  • VoC/E Research

    Research is the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. We seek to convey the voice of our customers and employees so that we might make better decisions for them each day on corporate decisions.

  • Serviced Design

    It is the design of services that complement a product. It includes the planning and orchestration of the organization’s resources to improve the employee and customer experience.

  • Company Ethos

    Strong company culture is necessary to deliver and support customer experiences. It is a shared sense of how you respond, what you are measured on, and the safety to identify gaps with recommendations. It is putting people over a process with clear values, empowering employees to effectively support their customers.

  • Measurement

    CX Measurement is the approach, algorithms and targets for all customer experiences within the customer journey. We look for influential pivotal moments that move customers toward a brand based on behaviors and sentiments. Measurements not just a metric, they are an application for customer intelligence (such as NPS or CLV) as well as milestone improvement targets.

  • Prioritization

    Prioritization is science of making decisions with data, business goals and consumer-focused outcomes. It can be a perpetual process of choosing one thing over another to advance the brand vision. Decisions are made consciously, based on research and data, and grounded to consumer values that connect to the brand. They require a framework with consistent decision evaluators to maintain CX priorities.

  • Resourcing

    We expand on the meaning of resourcing as more than the attraction and recruitment of individuals into the right role. It is taking a step back and defining the organization and their roles before they are filled. It's about connecting the CX vision with relevant workforce planning and sourcing approaches with a diversity in ideas that fuels collaboration.

Example of a past hosted CX community meet-up format.

Upcoming CX roundtable sign-up

CX Roundtables (Eventbrite)
Diagram titled "How we evaluate CX success" displaying a CX ecosystem with elements such as Current Barriers, VoC Research, Serviced Design, Employee Ethos, Measurement, Prioritization, Resources, Future State, and Obsession/Maturity, surrounded by a
Slide titled "Prior Recap" with subheading "Wellness impacts CX Ethos" on a dark background and detailed text about wellness, teamwork, remote work, empathy, methodologies, customer feedback, and hiring processes in white and bold font.
Slide with a dark gray background on the left with the word 'Today' in pink, and on the right side, a list of four questions related to organizational change and learning strategies.
A dual-page spread with the left page titled "Leading with Humanity" in large pink text on a black background, and the right page containing body text discussing culture, wellness, and relationships by Esther Perel.
A digital infographic showing a progression from surviving to thriving in wellness, listing eight categories: Physical, Emotional, Psychological, Social, Occupational, Spacial, Financial, Spiritual. It includes pink highlights with acronyms: Customer
Quote on a dark background reading, 'Certainty is the enemy of change.' by Esther Perel, with her title and credentials listed below.
A quote about the importance of insisting and understanding NPVs before starting a project, with references to McKinsey's article and author Safi Bahcall, displayed on a dark background.
Slide from a presentation titled "Certainty is the enemy of change" discussing how prevalent this is within organizations and how to innovate when stakeholders are risk averse.
Slide from a presentation titled 'How might we reframe confidence into a learning/research strategy? ... and how might this support CX efforts?'
Slide from presentation with dark background, large white text: "How might we use brand loyalty as a consumer credit card in test and learn improvements?" and smaller text: "TOPIC #3".