Mayo Nissen

Mayo Nissen s a creative director, strategist, and professional people watcher. He builds, grows, and leads teams at the nexus of research, systems thinking, and human centred design, and strives to create solutions that leave the world in better shape than he found it.

He has partnered with Fortune 100 corporations, startup ventures, and non-profit and public sector entities to bring change to their organisations, products, and services, while his personal work has been exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art and Milan's Salone Internazionale del Mobile, and featured in Domus, Wired Magazine, and The Guardian. He teaches, guest lectures and is a guest critic at NYU, SVA, Columbia, and CIID. Based in New York and originally from London, he has lived and worked in the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, and Denmark.

He likes big cities, hard questions, and shades of black.

Manali Mohanty

Manali Mohanty is a seasoned design leader who helps organisations navigate transformation through service design and the lens of customer-centricity. With over two decades of experience in design strategy, she has helped Fortune 100 companies, start ups, and public sector entities in North America, Europe and Asia to bring transformative change to their organisations, products, and services.

Manali seamlessly integrates her design thinking expertise with mindfulness practice to facilitate deep-seated change. She co-founded a startup incubator within a Fortune 500 company, launching four brands in a year, in a demonstration of customer-centric speed-to-market. As a member of the company’s innovation leadership, she was responsible for identifying whitespace in the market, opportunities for growth, and building both a culture and process of innovation.I am passionate about improving the communities she lives in, co-founded DreamBig, an education nonprofit, and advised startups with Rev-Tech Ventures and Silicon Vikings.

Manali has spoken at TEDx and CreativeMornings on design thinking, inclusivity, and personal transformation, and have lectured, set briefs, and mentored students at Savannah College of Art & Design, Florence’s Polimoda Fashion School, and at her alma mater, Parsons School of Design.

She holds degrees in Interaction, Industrial and Fashion design from three different continents, and has lived in the USA, Costa Rica and India. She solo-parents two boys and a neurotic dog, and ground herself with meditation and yoga.