The Lean Startup Conference

Jonathan has over 20 years of experience in product management and product strategy, working in startups and enterprises in the education and media spaces. He has worked as a consultant at companies such as American Press Institute, Disney, Amplify, Business Insider, Schoolnet, Sesame Workshop and The Associated Press.

Most recently, Jonathan has been consulting with Pearson’s Global Product Lifecycle team to craft and deploy a Lean Startup based framework of best practices for product teams and governance organizations across Pearson’s businesses.

Jonathan is an instructor in General Assembly’s Enterprise division and a coach for NYU Stern’s annual Business Plan Competition.

Jonathan holds an LLB from the University of Leeds, UK.

Andrew Breen is the Vice President for Product Delivery in American Express’s World Service business unit. He has over 20 years experience developing and growing products and services for companies of all sizes in the mobile, enterprise, e-commerce, media and education sectors. His repeated success as an entrepreneur, technologist, product owner, and business development leader is the result of a unique combination of deep technical knowledge, broad interdisciplinary skills, team leadership, and negotiation capabilities.

For American Express, he is implementing Lean practices to rapidly validate new servicing solutions that engage customers with Amex’s award winning Relationship Care ethos in digital channels. Earlier in his career, he started Palm’s wireless services division and has worked in mobile for nearly 20 years.

Kunjorn Chambundabongse (KC) is a Vice President of Innovation, Research & Development for Optum, a UnitedHealth Group company, where he is responsible for managing a strategic innovation portfolio and corporate entrepreneurship program focused on disruptive innovation and growth. His organization uses repeatable processes such as Customer Development, Lean Startup and Lean VC approaches to test the validity and market opportunity of new businesses and products. In this role, KC works to increase the throughput by which Optum incubates and invests in game-changing new products, services and businesses, with the goal to improve the efficiency and speed at which they are de-risked in-market and positioned for growth and scale.

Scott is a designer passionate about translating human needs into simple, innovative experiences that make people’s lives easier.

As a UX Lead at Capital One Scott has had the opportunity to help lead a massive responsive undertaking and is currently focused on using research, co-creation, and iteration to deliver meaningful next gen financial tools and experiences.

Giff Constable is the CEO of Neo Innovation, a global innovation consulting firm. In partnership with clients like Mayo Clinic, Time Inc, and American Express, he has applied lean startup methods in pursuit of new digital products and business lines. He has built and sold multiple companies. He also co-authored Talking to Humans, a primer on customer development now required in entrepreneurship programs around the world.

Rishi Dave is the Chief Marketing Officer of Dun & Bradstreet. In this role, Rishi runs marketing globally including brand, demand generation, digital, communications, PR, AR, operations, channel, events, sales enablement, corporate social responsibility, and product marketing.

Rishi joined Dun & Bradstreet in February 2014 from Dell where he was the Executive Director of Digital Marketing. In this role, Rishi had global responsibility for implementing marketing, lead generation, media, and content strategies for Dell.com, social media, communities, and mobile. He also managed the digital support of Dell’s events. Prior, Rishi led Dell’s global web analytics strategy and worked on Dell’s CEO level strategy as part of Dell’s Corporate Strategy group.

Rishi has spent his career in the technology industry with marketing, business development, and consulting roles at Dell, Rivio, Inc., Trilogy Software and Bain & Company.

Rishi holds degrees in Chemical Engineering and Economics with Honors from Stanford University and an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

A 5-time entrepreneur with a broad range of experience in companies ranging from seed stage startups to Fortune 50 corporations, Phil is uniquely positioned to bridge the worlds of the startup and the enterprises. He has over 10 years of experience in management consulting and training in strategy development, strategy implementation and process improvement, over 5 years experience in P&L ownership, annual budgeting and strategic alliance development, and over 3 years of experience leading corporate strategy and innovation for a fortune 50 company. He has worked with executives in industries ranging from military, government, financial services, manufacturing, cleantech and high technology. Currently he is a trainer, practitioner and coach, working with companies of all sizes – continuously leveraging the best experiences of startups and large companies to improve the ability to implement the Lean Startup approach in practice. He regularly coaches incubators and accelerators in the San Francisco Bay Area on entrepreneurship and the Lean Startup approach. An expert at converting theory to practice, he has world class strengths in negotiation, conflict resolution, idea iteration, financial modeling, financial projections and strategy creation and implementation. He earned a Bachelors of Science from the United States Naval Academy where he earned honors as a distinguished language scholar and later earned an MBA from the Chicago Booth School of Business. He is currently working on a book on how to use the Lean Startup approach to help transitioning military veterans.

With a wide and varied background of business experience, Ken has extensive expertise in guiding organizations through the strategic processes of implementing technology solutions that complement the Enterprise business vision. An insightful strategist with a wide range of experiences, Ken engages some of Ericsson’s highest profile clients. In his current role leading the Atlanta Idea Factory, Ken heads the Innovation function for Internet of Things technologies that focus on the Industry and Society objectives; defining business innovation using Lean Startup methodology, Customer Discovery, and Agile Development techniques. Through interactions with current and potential customers as well as the partner ecosystem community, Ken gains keen insight into the needs and desires of both the consumer marketplace and the providers who serve it. By offering extensive working experience in both large scale enterprises and start-up companies alike, Ken is uniquely qualified to drive strategic activities focusing on the development of customers, the expansion of markets, and the construction of innovative solutions in the fast moving Connected Things market.

Thor is the founder and CEO of Alpha UX, a company whose platform is used by Fortune 500 product teams to validate new concepts and generating user insights before building products. Prior to that he’s tested hundreds of product concepts as a lead architect at Zynga and CTO/founder of Casual Corp and Audax Health.

Vivian brings years of experience in executive coaching, as well as a successful career as a Human Resources leader within financial services, private equity, and investment banking. Her specializations have included mergers & acquisitions, talent management, performance management, and change management. Throughout her career, she built high performing teams in fast paced growth organizations.

Vivian founded VGT Consulting Group to work with senior executives, mid-career professionals, and entrepreneurs to provide leadership, management development, and transition services, helping them achieve individual professional goals and corporate objectives. In addition to executive coaching, Vivian consults on talent management, performance management, diversity initiatives, change management, and recruiting strategies across industry sectors.

Vivian earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Fordham University. In addition, she has done extensive studying in Organizational Cultures & Design, Leadership, and Change Management. She also has received certifications in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching.

Vivian is best known by her clients for her enthusiastic, straightforward, innovative, and supportive approach to evoking transformational change and getting results for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Viv Goldstein is Director, Innovation Acceleration, GE. She is the co-founder of FastWorks, a platform that applies entrepreneurial tools, processes and culture across GE. By providing additional resources, capabilities and coaching for critical growth initiatives, she is focused on driving impact and competitiveness in support of GE’s focus on delivering better outcomes for their customers faster.

Prior to this, Viv was Director of Commercial Learning & Transformation, GE Corporate Marketing, with responsibility for continuing to enhance and drive commercial capabilities across GE globally. She led the commercial curriculum development and supported the businesses and the various emerging markets to continue to drive the commercial skills.

Previously VP Marketing, GE Money (a division of GE Capital) Viv was actively engaged with the Customer Centric transformation of GE Money, developing and implementing value proposition strategies for the private and co-brand credit cards for leading retailers and clients. In her previous role, Viv was Vice President of Loyalty, responsible for the introduction of new loyalty capabilities, strategies and functionalities.

With GE Money since 1991, Viv has held various marketing and client management roles both in America and Europe, including general manager for the Gap Inc. portfolios. Her previous employment experience includes Bass, Johnson Wax and 3M Companies.

Viv balances her busy work schedule with her 3 children, traveling and community work.

Boris helps organizations adopt discovery- and experiment-driven growth strategies. He is trained in ethnography, engineering, and management, and holds a B.A. from Cornell.

Alongside coaching and consulting engagements with major brands — including Johnson & Johnson, Humana, the New York Times, HBR Block, Matrikon, Schlumberger, and NetSuite — Boris has mentored hundreds of intrapreneurs and startups on disciplined experimentation toward product-market fit.

Kimberly is Vice President of User Platform Products within Viacom’s Global Multiplatform Product group. Kimberly leads a team of product managers and engineers focused on aggressively growing the Viacom video-on-demand (VOD) and live linear video user base through engaging, customized experiences with a focus on three core areas: Content Discovery & Recommendations, Identity Services & Personalization and Authentication through TV Everywhere and Subscription services.

Ryan Jacoby is the founder of Machine, a strategy and innovation company. Working across industries, Machine helps companies big and small to grow by conceiving and designing new ventures, services, and products using the best approaches from design, business, and ventures.

Ryan is also a Venture Partner at the Collaborative Fund, a venture firm based in New York City, and teaches in the IxD Masters program at the School of Visual Arts.

Prior to founding his new firm, Ryan led teams and relationships at the design and innovation firm IDEO. He was a founding member and location head of the IDEO New York office and built the Business Design discipline at the firm.

Sonja Kresojevic has extensive international experience implementing Agile and Lean – from start ups in Silicon Valley to big broadcasting/publishing organizations in the UK including BBC, News Corp, and Channel 5. Sonjajoined Pearson in January 2013 as the Head of Digital Programme Management for PI Digital. Currently she is an SVP in the Chief Product Office, responsible for design and implementation of Pearson’s Global Product Lifecycle and Lean/Agile best practice adoption.

Benjamin works for UNDP’s Innovation Team and explores topics such as behavioral insights, human-centered design, big data and other practical ways to respond to complexity in development.
He manages UNDP’s Innovation Facility, a global fund, and connects new partners with UNDP offices to change business as usual.

Prior to his role with the Innovation Facility, he worked in UNDP’s Gender Team on innovation. Before joining the United Nations he worked for the German International Cooperation (GIZ) in Rwanda and Nepal and as a GIZ-seconded expert for Knowledge Management and Communications for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India.

Benjamin holds a Master’s degree in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Heidelberg and a post-graduate certification from New York University.

Richard McCreary is a Finance and Portfolio Manager in Humana’s Fast Start Lab that leverages Lean Startup and Agile processes to eliminate consumer problems in Humana’s service organizations. Richard is responsible for estimating ROI/NPV of initiatives, valuing portfolio of work, budgeting and prioritization of portfolio within the enterprise, and communications within the enterprise on the Fast Start Lab portfolio.

Richard has been with Humana for 9 years and has supported several lines of business as an operational finance partner. Richard was part of the initial wave of business leaders and associates that joined the Fast Start Lab in January of 2015 when it was established.

Amee Mungo is a passionate Customer Experience and Digital Native with a career spanning 2 decades and multiple geographies with tech start-ups and strategy consulting. Always customer facing, always customer passionate, always in partnership with Design, Strategy and Engineering.

Currently with Capital One in Digital Transformation she is leading a product team focused on a new product discovery and industry disruptor concept.   Amee’s honed specialty is to articulate early customer intent with business stakeholders and infuse the product development lifecycle with customer empathy & focus, design strategy, UX and product management.

Frank is executive director of the Entrepreneurial Institute, leading a pan-University initiative to spur and support entrepreneurship and technology commercialization across NYU. Frank is also the managing director of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund, a seed-stage venture fund formed to invest exclusively in startups founded NYU students, faculty and researchers. He is also the co-author, with Giff Constable, of the book Talking to Humans, which guides entrepreneurs through the customer discovery process. Frank has more than 20 years of experience in early-stage venture capital, spinouts and technology commercialization. He was a founding partner of corporate spinout VC specialist New Venture Partners, and before that a director and entrepreneur-in-residence in Lucent’s New Ventures Group.

As the Chief Marketing Officer of Global Research at General Electric, Rakesh is responsible for accelerating commercialization of innovative technologies. By bringing market based approach and advanced marketing tools and techniques, he is focused on maximizing commercial value generated at GE’s global research centers. Rakesh leads GE’s FastWorks based on Lean Startup for Global Research.

Prior to this role, Rakesh held various marketing positions with increasing responsibilities at GE Capital including CMO (Bank Loan Group), Strategic Marketing Leader (Corporate Finance), CMO (Global Electronics Services), and Marketing Leader (Equipment Finance Services).

Rakesh joined GE with over 12 years of experience in roles of increasing responsibility for both FedEx and DCM Toyota. He holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Alabama and a Bachelor of Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, India.

Aubrey Smith is an enterprise innovation ninja, Lean Startup coach and passionate commercial strategist. She was on the early team of GE’s FastWorks initiative and, as a consultant, helped with the early launch of a similar initiative at a major U.S. bank.

While on GE’s Global Innovation Acceleration team, she worked directly with Eric Ries to develop important components of the Operating System (OS) and enterprise mindset shift of the company-wide transformation effort.

She then joined Bionic Solution, an innovation consulting firm, as Director of the Bionic Accelerator, overseeing work with large, complex F100s. She also co-led the Bionic Lab where she designed and implemented rapid low fidelity prototypes and experiments to test critical new business hypotheses with customers and marketplaces. Aubrey has coached and led teams in marketplaces spanning a vast array of industries – from aviation to consumer payments – in B2C, B2B, B2B2C and everything in between.

Aubrey is now founder and president of an innovation strategy consulting firm and her mission is to foster and nurture communities of thinkers and practitioners on the cutting edge of innovation process, products and ideas.

During her free time, Aubrey can be found chasing her toddler twin boys and dog at her home in New York. Aubrey has an MBA in Finance and Marketing from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and a BA from Georgetown University.

John Whalen, PhD leads Brilliant Experience – a DC-based UX consultancy known for transforming psychological user insights into powerful business strategy and advanced UX innovations. Brilliant partners with clients to ensure the success of mission-critical innovation projects through their unique blend of user-centered design, psychology, design thinking and lean startup techniques.

As UX & Strategy Lead, John’s specialty is providing businesses with competitive advantages by uncovering the spoken and unspoken needs of users through user research activities and, from those insights, producing powerful, actionable business and experience strategies. His expert knowledge of human vision, attention and memory is relied on by Fortune 500 companies in the ecommerce, financial, healthcare and government verticals nationwide.