Innovation Strategy · Mixed Methods Research · Experience Design
8+ years helping Fortune 500 companies develop and execute innovation pipelines – from front-end discovery to strategic frameworks that stick.
The best research doesn't just answer questions – it changes which questions get asked.
I'm an innovation strategist and researcher with 8+ years of consulting experience helping Fortune 500 companies develop and execute their innovation pipelines.
I balance deep academic grounding with real-world practice, leading cross-functional teams through complex projects in highly regulated industries. I utilize a customized design-thinking process paired with proven mixed methods approaches to create measurable impact.
Great strategic leadership rests on three principles:
01Connection. The ability to connect disparate data, ideas, people, and processes to accelerate innovation. I read a room quickly – sensing what people actually think and feel, not just what they say in a workshop – and use that to bring the right people and ideas together at the right moment.
02Clarity. The ability to bring a common understanding and build alignment across stakeholder groups. I translate complexity into language that meets each audience where they are – speaking the dialect of executives, designers, and frontline teams.
03Curation. The ability to cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. I have an innate ability to quickly differentiate between what information is critical for strategic objectives and what information is merely interesting.
Service Strategy · Life Sciences
8 in-depth interviews with SMEs across business units to map the sales-to-implementation process for a precision medicine company. Output: a 6-phase process framework – from Belief and Access through Grow – now used for onboarding and strategic initiative planning.
Mixed Methods · Financial Services
Segmentation survey (n=2,000, k-means cluster analysis) paired with 30 remote IDIs to define the value proposition for a new online-only bank. Delivered 4 personas and journey maps. Client launched with multiple deposit products; digital communications saw high engagement.
Qualitative Research · Education
18 remote IDIs with high school students nationwide to understand STEM engagement drivers and barriers. Synthesised into persona and journey map spanning middle school through high school. Informed product design and market entry value proposition for the K-12 education sector.
Critical Design · Speculative Hardware
A working homage to Kurt Vonnegut’s 1950 short story – an AI on a Raspberry Pi that wrote 500 love letters before printing “goodbye world” and terminating. A critical look at how readily we anthropomorphize AI, and how easily we discard it.
Personal Research Infrastructure · Local AI
A fully local document retrieval system built on the principle that a good system should retrieve and cite, not summarise and synthesise – running on a Raspberry Pi with no documents leaving the machine.
Beyond the 5E Framework: Are Classic Experience Design Frameworks Still Relevant Today?
Russell, A., George, M., Alexis, J. · IIT Institute of Design
Designing for Fit: A Framework for Pragmatic Implementation of AI Systems
LinkedIn · Article
Understanding and Application of Rigor in Qualitative Design Research
Russell, A., Pino, Z. · 8th International Conference for Design Education Researchers (DRS)
Let's work on something worth doing.
Open to senior research and strategy roles, consulting engagements, and conversations about where design and AI are headed.
Resume (PDF) → GitHub → Observable →