An exceptional
team makes all the difference.

Lena is an experienced talent strategist with a background in Anthropology and Sociology, enabling her to establish authentic connections with a diverse range of talent. Transitioning to a sales role six years ago, she discovered her passion for talent acquisition, dedicating the past three years to building numerous adaptable and diverse IT teams within the private sector.

Her pride stems from guiding individuals to their desired roles and witnessing the outstanding work her consultants consistently deliver. Lena has been recognized with multiple awards for “talent retention” and “talent service experience,” consistently exceeding client and consultant expectations and ensuring sustained employment opportunities for her team.

In her current role, Lena focuses on nurturing relationships within the design community, collaborating with top-tier talent to align their career aspirations. Her joy lies in securing dream job placements for practitioners and witnessing their growth and success over time.

Lena holds a Joint Honours Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Sociology from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Marion Verschaeve is an accomplished sales professional with a wealth of experience, underpinned by a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from HEC Montreal, specializing in B2B sales. During her 15-year tenure at notable firms like Nespresso, DAVIDsTEA, and a renowned pharmaceutical company, Marion has excelled in leading sales and marketing teams, crafting strategies that consistently surpassed growth targets.

At Outwitly, Marion’s mission is clear: to articulate the unparalleled value of Outwitly’s services and catalyze our growth. In her current role, Marion is dedicated to understanding the intricate needs of customers and clients, ensuring a positive experience for all. Her responsibilities encompass leading client success initiatives and designing strategies, building, nurturing, and strengthening relationships, and maintaining a stellar customer/client experience. 

Abigail Lautan is a Communications and UX Design student studying at Wilfrid Laurier University. Based in Ontario, she is Outwitly’s Social Media Intern, working on maintaining and monitoring a strong brand presence across all of Outwitly’s social platforms. Her passions include creating impactful content for the audience and helping to build meaningful connections. She is constantly striving to learn and implement new strategies to enhance engagement and foster a strong community through various social media platforms. 

Abigail’s social media experience includes working as a Marketing Director at UX Laurier. She develops and maintains the team’s brand identity, ensures consistent messaging across all marketing channels, and implements marketing strategies to promote the team’s products and services.

Janine is a UX Designer with a background in Industrial Design. She is an expert in product design, UI design, and qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Janine is passionate about solving problems and looking outside the constraints of tools and media to design exceptional experiences. 

Janine has had a wide range of experience within the field of design. She began her career as an Industrial Designer within the aerospace industry. Following her time as an Industrial Designer, she worked in the public sector as a Graphic Designer and Analyst with the Department of Canadian Heritage. She made her transition into UX Design in 2021, where she continues to develop human-centered solutions.

Janine will graduate in May 2023 with a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Carleton University.

Amy is a Service Designer with a specialty in User Experience Research. Her design thinking approach is informed by her background in exhibition curation, ethnography, digital experience strategy, and workshop facilitation. She is an advocate for diversity, equity, accessibility, cross-disciplinary teamwork, and building with foresight. Amy enjoys sharing research findings throughout organizations in ways that allow others to connect with the humanity of users. 

She holds an MDEI, Digital Experience Innovation, from the University of Waterloo, and a BA (Hons), from the University of Toronto.

Kristin is a leader in Design Strategy with 16 years experience across design, organizational strategy, and complex program management roles, spanning the public, private, and non-profit sectors across the US, Canada, and Finland. She is an expert in co-creation and building collaborative teams, workshop design and facilitation, and organizational strategy. 

Kristin began her career in manufacturing, supply chain, and operations management. She grew up working at her family’s small manufacturing business, completed her Bachelor’s in Supply Chain Management, and then joined Microsoft Operations working in large-scale software program management, eventually leading the global launch of Office 2010.

 Transitioning from the world of operations, Kristin discovered Design Thinking while completing her Master’s in Business Strategy at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. Studio courses like Aalto’s Design for Government and Stanford’s Global Design Innovation (ME310) convinced her that Service Design was her true calling, and the rest is history.

Yasmine is currently completing her Master of Design at Carleton University in Ottawa, where her research is focused on the intersection of Service Design, Strategic Design, Employee Activism and Organizational Change.

Prior to pursuing Design, Yasmine trained and worked as a lawyer for several years, where she practiced in Toronto and in Frankfurt, Germany. Eventually, her long-standing interest in tackling real-world problems from a human-centred place of empathy prompted a major career change and she hasn’t looked back.

Yasmine is passionate about connecting with people and meaningfully understanding their problems, using ethnographic design research methods to ultimately improve their everyday experiences by accessing and making use of the services they need most. She is particularly interested in Service Design for social and public sector innovation.

In addition to experience in private legal practice, Yasmine has also worked in the public sector, both for the federal and provincial governments. She holds a B.Hum, a J.D., and an LL.M, and is currently an M.Des candidate at Carleton.

Ayomide (also known as Aday) is a Nigerian-born, Ontario based service designer. Her work meshes human-centered design practice with her extensive background in the strategic development of interactive experiences.

She is an expert in design planning, qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, and product design. Ayomide is passionate about connecting people, businesses and the world through inspiring design. Ayomide has had
a diverse career in the public service including the Federal Immigration and Citizenship sector of Canada and pharmaceutical companies.

She holds a BASC of Industrial Design in the Department of Applied Science from the University of Toronto as well as a MDES of Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University.

Sara Fortier is a design strategist and CEO/founder of Outwitly Inc. She is an expert in ethnographic research methods, workshop facilitation, and design-thinking, and she is passionate about human-centered approaches to innovation.

Prior to founding Outwitly, Sara worked in Silicon Valley for Fortune 500 clients such as Apple, AT&T, and Microsoft. She is also the former User Experience Director for one of the top ten media companies in the United States where she led the consumer products design and research teams.

Transitioning from her experience in the tech world, she now helps organizations improve systemic issues surrounding user and customer experiences by applying the same human-centered and innovative practices used in product and service development.

Sara received a Master of Interdisciplinary Design and a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Carleton University. She continues to work closely with the University as a sessional lecturer and advisor to the School of Industrial Design.

Michelle McCune is a design leader with over 15 years of experience in consulting. She is passionate about making sense of messy, ambiguous problems and building inspired-yet-practical solutions to improve people’s lives.

Her work has helped numerous global pharma and healthcare organizations to bring new service solutions to market while establishing the internal capabilities, systems and tools for delivering better patient and physician experiences. She is passionate about healthcare and understanding how the complex interactions between patients, professionals, and families impact care.

Michelle holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial design, and her work has garnered award recognition from the Design Exchange, Neocon, and the Chicago Athenaeum (Good Design Awards.)

Shanna Small is an administrative professional with 15 years of experience in bookkeeping and office management. She holds a Business Administration Certificate from the University of Victoria and is QuickBooks trained and certified.

Shanna brings balance, loyalty, and companionability to her work. She believes that “you must begin from where you are,” remaining committed to your goals while learning to enjoy the flow through the ups and downs of life.

When she is not on her yoga mat or working behind a computer, you can usually find her at the lake as she loves being on the water with friends and family.

Danielle joined the Outwitly team as their Social Media and Communications Coordinator in May 2021, and now works as the company’s Communications Manager, leading the marketing team.

For several years she worked alongside small businesses to operate their communications and marketing initiatives, and to establish a strong brand presence across online platforms. Danielle is responsible for creating, implementing, and overseeing the communications and marketing strategy for Outwitly Inc. to educate, engage our communities, and build brand awareness. She works to plan, edit, create and write content for all aspects of social media, including The Weekly Wit newsletter, our company blog, and other external communications channels. Her role includes defining and measuring key performance indicators for each communications channel.

In the fall of 2020, Danielle graduated from the University of Manitoba with an Arts degree majoring in Psychology.

Meaghan Gorchynski is a graphic designer based in Brandon, Manitoba. As Outwitly’s in-house graphic designer, Meaghan specializes in branding and creating compelling digital materials for Outwitly’s social media channels, newsletter, blog, and more.

Meaghan’s educational background includes graphic design, web design, and video production studies. She worked for five years as a designer for a growing media company and has created branding and web design projects for small businesses in her community.

Meaghan’s creative style centers around clean and sophisticated aesthetics, with a dedication to elevating clients’ experiences through a thoughtful approach to design.

Chinedum Achebe, also known as Nedu, is a talented UX & UI Designer. She specializes in delivering seamless user experiences, well-researched brand identities and beautiful user interfaces for Outwitly’s clients.

Possessing a comprehensive and multi-faceted design experience, Nedu has designed for several industries, including healthcare, fashion, law, e-commerce, and technology. In 2020, she worked with Hackworks as a UI/UX Designer, IBM as a Visual Designer, Danna Nicole, and HackerGal as a Graphic Designer.

Nedu holds a B.Eng in Information & Communication Engineering (Covenant University, Nigeria) and a Masters degree in Digital Experience Innovation (University of Waterloo, Canada). In addition, she has received qualifications as a Google Analytics Individual, an IBM Design Thinking Practitioner, and holds a certificate in Mimic Pro Digital Marketing.