START-UP FOUNDER

Jes Wade Atelier

In 2009, after designing for global fashion houses for a decade, including Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, Jessica founded a start-up to re-think industry practices and use design thinking to drive business strategy. The Atelier used a parallel innovation process that combined technical craftsmanship supported by client engagement. Within 24 months client acquisition and product development had tripled revenues and the B2C business model and brand was awarded by a jury of C-suite fashion executives, led by the President of LVMH USA, in the Design Entrepreneur NYC program competition.

Using sustainable design thinking principals, we vertically integrated product development, production, and sales while engaging all stakeholders (vendors, customers, employees, investors) to support growth. Manufacturing focused on energy efficiency and zero waste. Employee well-being was facilitated with beautifully designed work spaces, full benefits, continuing education, and morning yoga.

The collection combined old world craftsmanship and glamour with new world technologies and hosted clients in experiential retail environments that popped-up in private homes, art galleries and stores across the United States. The women who were part of the Jes Wade story, to this day, are empowered by their Jes Wade pieces and continue to wear them as they celebrate life around the world.

A SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL

CUSTOMERS CENTRAL TO PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT & BUSINESS STRATEGY

ZERO WASTE DESIGN & VERTICAL PRODUCTION

RESPECTED CRAFTSMANSHIP & ETHICAL LABOR PRACTICES

MINIMAL CARBON FOOTPRINT IN PACKAGING & SHIPPING

WORKSHOPS

To empower professionals with change mindset toward collaborative thought leadership and foresight, Jessica engages individuals and teams to solve problems and innovate for positive social and environmental impact.

Some of the skills learned during these workshops include: non-hierarchical leadership, comfort with ambiguity, connecting-the-dots between diverse viewpoints, courage to share unfinished and raw ideas, change mindset and futures storytelling.

Workshops are curated around a topic or suite of topics. The research and insight presented becomes the subject matter for teams to tackle. The subjects are developed through an orchestrated set of activities that include activities like body storming, crazy 8s, storyboarding and storytelling.

Business professionals, consultants and academics present research on topics which then become the signals for each team’s futures thinking. Previous topics have included the following: data analytics and the UN SDGs, wellness and growth mindset, change management, leadership, empathy, artificial intelligence, diversity and inclusion, cognitive diversity and shared value economy.

Speakers have included thought leaders from the following organizations: Thompson Reuters, LinkedIn, Deloitte, The Glimpse Group, Schlange and Co GmbH, Fordham University, Fordham Social Innovation Collaboratory and Columbia University.

The below 15-minute video clip is the futures thinking storyboard presentation at the conclusion of a workshop developed on the following topics:

What happens when diversity is the new normal? with Patsy Doerr from Thompson Reuters

What are valuable traits of future leadership? with Hector Hernandez from LinkedIn

How can business and universities empower each other? with Lyron Bentovim from The Glimpse Group

How can data analytics measure social impact? with Christopher Haasen from S&C Consulting

PRESENTATIONS

Presentation topics vary according to the needs of the audience and include futures thinking around transformations in technology, business, wellness and education.

The 30-minute presentation below on Transforming Business for the 21st Century was originally given in person at the invitation of Dr. Emily Balcetis to the Social Psychology Action & Motivation Lab (SPAM Lab) at NYU in November 2019. The following topics were considered during the presentation and a brief body storming activity followed:

What is the past and present history of business?

What transformations are occurring in business in the US and globally?

What are the indicators that business is transitioning towards frameworks that measure and manage impact on stakeholders, the environment and society?

What kinds of futures will these new business frameworks drive in the decades ahead?

STRATEGY TOOLS

Star Scenario Planning

Innovation requires a systemic approach to successfully scale adoption. The Star Scenario framework breaks systems into five categories and allows a business to understand, from a societal and environmental standpoint, where frictions to adoption might exist with both short-term and long-term projects. David Gautschi first developed the framework for use in e-business markets and after two decades of implementation and revisions it is now industry agnostic. My work with Gautschi and the Star Scenario framework has focused on disruptions in the energy sector. To use this tool for future thinking disruptions and sustainable innovations across industries, develop the Star Scenario for the following four futures: Status quo future, business as expected future, moderately reformed future, and radically discontinuous future.

Quadrant Scenario Planning

Two axis scenarios, with a high and low, is a traditional scenario planning method. This method is utilized when mitigating risk and pursuing opportunity around the impact of future unknowns of a business, industry, governments or the world at large. In an MBA master class with Hunter Lovins my team developed the following two axis scenario: individualism <—> community and renewable energy <—> fossil fuels. We played out the resulting four quadrants by developing future NYTimes headlines for each quadrant during the next ten years. The goal of Quadrant Scenario Planning is to mitigate risk by developing a plan that plays out positively for all four scenarios. Over time, as news headlines become reality, one develops insight into which scenario is more likely to occur.

The Four Drives for Employee Engagement

A framework developed from cognitive and behavior science research which establishes four evolutionary drives that, when engaged together, allow humans to thrive. Business research by Gallup and HBR show that companies with highly engaged employees outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share and top performing companies have employee engagement rates of 21x the workforce globally. As a graduate research assistant of Dr. Michael Pirson, I explored how, with moderate revisions for business, this engagement framework is useful in assessing employee engagement as well as other vital organizational stakeholders; customers, vendors and investors.

Four Stakeholders & Six Trust Factors

Behavioral science tells us that engagement and change mindset occurs when organizations and communities are centered around shared values and trust. Based on the research of Dr. Michael Pirson, simple stakeholder surveys can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in a business trust framework. Once blindspots are recognized these areas become the white space for innovation toward building stakeholder engagement (customers, employees, vendors and investors). Trust is the nutrient that makes the impossible possible. The most effect method to gain trust is to give it.

STRATEGIC

DESIGN THINKING

IBM Case Study: Transforming a global company

Design thinking is a highly flexible systems oriented framework that accelerates business outcomes. It is a transparent approach that engages diverse stakeholders in the innovation process to integrate new or existing solutions to solve complex problems and speed time to market. The above short video, featuring IBM’s Miroslav Azis and produced by Technical Leadership Exchange, gives insight into how the design thinking process was developed and how it affects roles in a corporation. After developing and launching a proprietary process in their office in Austin, TX the process is integrating throughout IBM globally and has been coined Enterprise Design Thinking (ETM). Eventually IBM began rolling out ETM throughout their entire global organization’s ecosystem and this transformation is discussed in a 20-minute documentary video named THE LOOP. In 2018, IBM released a detailed report on design thinking’s economic impact on organizations. Some highlights include a 301% ROI by cutting costs with 2x faster time-to-market and 75% reduction in design time.

Key components of design thinking include: cross-functional teamwork, prototyping and testing loops, processes to fail rapidly, pivots, agility, avoiding top-down solutions (implementation agnostic), storytelling, exploring ambiguity, and research with empathy towards user needs.