Location:

Geneva/London

Quote:

“At Open, the thing that excites me the most is that the market in which we operate is maturing fast. There is so much more awareness and understanding of the value of inclusive insight, design and innovation now, and the industry is becoming more professional and, in parts, more effectively collaborative.”

Background:

Christine founded Open in 2015 to enable the perspectives of disabled and older consumers to inform better design and innovation more easily and consistently.

She is an experienced inclusive research leader and Human Centred Designer who considers which humans are considered at the centre of design. Christine is also an innovator having created new businesses in new markets, new products, services and experiences for a number of decades in digital, physical and customer service environments. She loves supporting others innovate and has been an inclusive insight expert at a range of accelerators and intrepreneurship programmes.

Christine leads the team to ensure that the research design, analysis and delivery provides consistently professional, robust and practical insights well targeted to the objectives.

Christine often speaks at conferences and keynotes business sessions on inclusive design, innovation, research practices, CX, UX and specific emerging technologies.

She leads the Market Research Society’s Unlimited Group (disability-inclusive research), is an active member of the inclusive design workstream for XRAccess (immersive design) community and the Zero Project Network. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and in Asian Studies from the ANU, MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, and CPACC from the IAAP.

What I enjoy:

When not managing the growth and delivery quality of our work at Open, she can generally be found in a café with her husband, kids or friends or on a mountain cycling, running or skiing some Alpine trail.

Location:

Geneva/London

Quote:

“At Open, I am excited by the opportunity to work with a fantastic team to develop a business that can have a positive impact on people’s lives.”

Background:

Rob’s role at Open Inclusion is to lead new opportunity development, client engagement and support, organise the broader research program and support the delivery of great client projects. He also oversees Open’s operations and support teams.

Rob has over 20 years of experience leading teams to design, build and run digital products and innovative solutions. He has led teams across consulting, digital agency and the financial services industry to both improve and enable the innovation processes and culture. He also build’s and deliver new initiatives aimed at improving the customer experience and operational excellence.

Rob is passionate about the opportunity to bring more diverse perspectives to our clients to better enable ideation and improve proposition development and the value of the innovation. This will deliver better solutions to all their customers, including those with specific access needs.

What I enjoy:

When not focusing on helping to enable the growth of Open, Rob is usually spending time with his family or enjoying the great outdoors.

Location:

North Carolina, United States

Quote:

“I love working at Open because of the people. We work with an incredible team who are all compassionate, insightful, collaborative, and share the same mission of advancing disability inclusion in our society.”

Background:

Ali leads Open Inclusion’s global community engagement and development. She is a disability strategist, advocate, and powerful, positive communicator.

Ali is based in the US and has extensive global experience having lived and worked around the world, including in China and Australia. In her role at Open, Ali helps us effectively develop valuable strong mutual relationships with individuals and community advocacy groups.

This generates opportunities for those with valuable lived experiences to work, get involved in inclusive innovation initiatives, and engage in paid research opportunities. These support the community and help businesses better serve customers with disabilities and grow the inclusive capability of their organizations.

Ali holds a Bachelor of Business Administration specialising in entrepreneurship from the Herbert Business School at the University of Miami.

What I enjoy:

Ali enjoys swimming as a C6 quadriplegic, traveling, and outdoor accessible adventures.

Location:

London

Quote:

“At Open, I get to work with our community toward accessible technological change to advance inclusion. That is exciting!”

Background:

Josh is Open’s Inclusive Innovation Programme Lead. He is leading our work on a grassroots inclusive innovation for an exciting global initiative being launched in 2022. He also works across the broader Open team on innovation projects we are working on internally and externally.

Prior to stepping into this significant innovation role, Josh had joined Open as our Lead for the Mobility/Dexterity Community. He still ensures that we remain aware of and up to date with the community’s concerns, needs, and interests. With the other Community Leads, he continues to help co-design research to ensure that the needs of people with physical access needs are well-considered and incorporated in our work.

His background is in technology and he takes every opportunity to work in research, design, and innovation on new cutting-edge products and services that look to enhance diverse opportunities and improve inclusive design and outcomes.

What I enjoy:

Josh has a competitive nature and loves to compete. He is currently on the talent and development squad for Great Britain in Air Rifle.