Speakers

Ashleigh Axios is a speaker, strategic creative, and an advocate for design’s ability to break barriers and create positive social change. She is Chief Experience Officer and a Partner at Coforma, a digital consultancy and design firm that crafts creative solutions and builds technology products that support communities.

Derek Featherstone is an internationally known speaker, practitioner, and authority on accessibility and inclusive design. He has been working on the web since 1999, when he left his career as a high school teacher to start his own web design company.

A self-described what-iffer, Loriah is passionate about working across disciplines and teams to clarify complex problem spaces. She finds everything endlessly fascinating, asks way too many questions, and writes about those questions sometimes on Medium.

Kathy is the US-born daughter of Chinese-born parents. As an Asian-American, she experienced her childhood as a third culture kid.

Founder and partner of truematter, a user experience strategy firm, Dean has created user-centered digital products for 25 years. He oversees truematter’s UX practice, leading engagements for regional organizations as well as the Fortune 100.

Cris is a content designer in Toronto with about 15 years experience writing for UX. Currently, she’s a content chapter lead at RBC, Canada’s largest bank.

Colleen is passionate about collaboration, human-centered research, and a holistic approach to creating products. She’s currently a UX Researcher at Groupon; bringing a customer-focused lens to teams and initiatives across the organization with a fiery heart and quick wit.

Cliff is a Principal Designer at Salesforce, helping build world-class customer experience tools. For him, experience design is a strategy for creating positive change in the world for others—not in a vague sense, but a literal one.

Betsy is a curious creative currently working as a Senior Experience Designer at Intuit.

A curious skeptic and expert snark, Karen has a deep love for beautiful messes fostered over 20 years of work in UX and product.