Lauren is a Senior Partner based in Venice, CA, with 25+ years of experience. She is a multi-disciplinary strategist with a focus on market research, AI innovation, and visual design. In addition to NextAccess, Lauren has led the creative agency Field+Edge for 10+ years, working with companies such as LOreal Research & Innovation (CPG), Sparks & Honey (advertising), HP (technology), GE Ventures (VC), BeautyCounter (direct to consumer), and Section (edtech). She is an Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at both the School of Visual Arts in New York and the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Lauren has also ghostwritten several books on business model innovation, including The Invincible Company, is a Certified Scrum Master, and was a design assistant to Milton Glaser.

Recent examples of her work include the following:

• Product Manager for Content Studio of SaaS and innovation consultancy; managed team of 6 to create editorial content and outreach for enterprise and prosumers, including social media, blogs, customized research, and webinars; built and taught sprints and workshops as well as collaborated on several books; created over 100 HBS-style case studies on business model innovation focusing on both historical and modern companies that disrupted the business world for use with consultancy’s enterprise innovation platform

• Conducted comprehensive research and foresight analysis around consumer behaviors, ethnographic trends, market dynamics, and competitive landscape for global beauty brand; delivered several white papers and trend reports; topics included personalization of consumer products across several global beauty product lines

• Collaborated with NYU professor to build an online MBA course on Product Marketing; co-created an online Masters of Design curriculum in Branding Strategy

Previously, Lauren was an accomplished management executive on Wall Street for close to 20 years until pivoting to focus on her passion for technology. She held a number of senior positions, including COO and Trading Manager of a proprietary hedge fund within UBS, Executive Director of Interest Rate Derivatives Trading and Mortgage Strategy at UBS, and Market Strategist and Chief of Staff to the CEO of MF Global.  Highlights of her finance career include:

• Advanced UBS’s internal trading desk’s capabilities to trade across products by building an electronic trading platform measuring risk and P&L with global team of 9 people and annual P&L of $1B

• Provided both short term and long term strategic planning and analyses for CEO of MF Global, which included risk management, client engagements, and overall market analysis

• Built internal hedge fund for MF Global from ground up, including platform for internal risk reporting and communications; hired and managed team of 12 with budget of $60M

She earned an M.B.A. in International Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; an M.F.A. as Designer + Entrepreneur, Valedictorian, from the School of Visual Arts; and a B.A., magna cum laude, in Astrophysics from Columbia University.