Brian Ragan

I have participated for several years in a leadership development program called Pathwise, which develops conscious leaders that create more conscious, successful companies. Through self-examination in a cohort learning environment, Pathwise members are taught the psychological foundations of complex organizational dynamics, and explore tools that help leaders better engage with and support team members in their own personal and professional growth.

My leadership approach is to get out of the way but support talented people and bring them together under a common vision and set of values. I support team members by working to improve the context within which they work, the dynamics they're challenged with, and by providing individual coaching and support where beneficial.

I introduce user experience / product design methodologies where they are under-developed or lacking completely. This may be deep diving to shore up a single area of design process (like re-conceiving journey maps for client workshops) or re-framing the entire strategy/design relationship and process to align with a stronger design methodology. I respond to each organization's unique dynamics, areas of opportunity, and goals to provide structure, optimize workflow, and achieve high quality design outcomes.

With a product development mindset, in which contact with clients (or users) is prioritized, I focus on developing strong relationships to develop trust, uncover authentic insights and get close to the inspiration for products that are useful and valued. I've been quite successful in winning clients' trust. 

I collaborate with clients and developers across borders to create cross-cultural products and marketing programs. (I promise I didn't just slot this one in here just to try to game another work trip to Sweden to see family and dance like a frog around a maypole. . . ok, yes, I did.)

I co-created MRY's first Mobile Week—an internal program dedicated to challenging staff to up their game in understanding and conceiving innovative customer engagement and mobile marketing programs for its clients. I led the first ever MRY App Challenge in which team competed to pitch novel app ideas to a panel of executives to gain funding to implement the best idea. The effort contributed to winning design efforts for several new mobile products.