Express Healthcare Staffing
THE SITUATION
Express Employment Professionals is a leading staffing and temp agency, running on a franchise model. Already strong in industrial and clerical occupations, they wanted to grow their business in healthcare, especially nursing.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
Express brought us in to research nurses, because our work with Welle and Hikma had built deep empathy with healthcare staff. We interviewed travel and per diem nurses working in 12 states, across levels: licensed practical nurses, registered nurses, and nurse practitioners. We learned about how they feel about their identity, how they choose their jobs, and how they interact with other nurses. And within this ecosystem, we uncovered their expectations of agencies.
THE BENEFITS
We delivered a deep understanding of nurse culture, unmet needs, and the role agencies play today. That gave Express a basis for services competitors don’t offer. While competitors focused on platforms, technology, and medical expertise, Express chose human connection and local knowledge - knowing its customers at a deeper level.
Remento
THE SITUATION
Drake met Remento founder Charlie Greene at the Harvard Innovation Labs, and mentored him for a semester before Charlie graduated from Harvard Business School and took Remento full time. After a few products that didn’t quite land, the team was building its next offering: a keepsake book written with the help of AI.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
Charlie invited Drake to lead offering development sessions: clarify the concept, guide customer research, prioritize features, and sharpen the value proposition. He wanted his team to learn by doing, so they could carry the work forward. Our first sessions set the learning agenda for the research. Drake stayed in the loop while the Remento team ran it, then helped turn the findings into an actionable product roadmap. The clearer value proposition also opened up many go-to-market options.
THE BENEFITS
Remento’s very lean and very capable team did a great job developing the product and promoting it during key family holidays. It has been Remento’s breakout offering, driving growth, winning a deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, and opening doors to many new opportunities.
Lesaffre
THE SITUATION
A third of the world’s bread is baked with yeast from this French company, the leader in quality yeast. But competitors are catching up, at 80% of the quality for 20% of the cost. Lesaffre wanted to expand into services to hold its lead, and needed to know which services customers would value most.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
We ran a global research project with commercial bakers and the distributors who sometimes played an intermediary role. It began just after the Ukraine war drove up fuel and wheat prices - a baker’s two biggest costs - and many were struggling to stay in business. In-depth interviews across 5 continents showed us global, regional, and national trends and needs. We also inventoried the services offered by Lesaffre’s 50 state-of-the-art baking labs around the world. Together, that let us prioritize the best ways for Lesaffre to empower their customers.
THE BENEFITS
Bakers and distributors needed help keeping their businesses alive - in their operations, not just the baking itself. In regions where transportation took a long time (e.g. Brazil, Argentina), customers needed to extend yeast shelf life. In regions where transportation required a lot of fuel (e.g. the Philippines), they needed to decrease the frequency of trips. In regions where the price of bread was capped (e.g. Morocco), they needed help baking luxury pastries. In China, where baked goods are seen as foreign novelties, they wanted help accelerating product innovation. We showed each Lesaffre regional unit how to be relevant and valuable to its own customers.
Pine Gate Renewables
THE SITUATION
Pine Gate Renewables (PGR) was a maturing solar utility startup. It had the operational track record for a credible, distinctive story, but had not yet written it. With huge growth ahead, PGR needed to get the story straight and learn to convey the emotional core of the brand.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
Solar power is still a developing market with wildly diverse competitors. PGR stood apart by both developing and operating its solar farms - which meant many audiences to address. We conducted research interviews with landowners (in different stages of projects), finance partners (across debt and equity), and energy consumers (corporate offtakers, utilities, and brokers). We learned how PGR could earn trust with each, as custodians of the land, dependable business partners, and experts who could see projects through to completion.
THE BENEFITS
A large, inclusive workshop at the start brought everyone into the room and the problem space. We framed the challenges and opportunities together, so each person could see their role in the ecosystem. When we presented our findings, every team understood the rational and emotional needs of its audience, and how its own work fit the whole. They could tell one story with different priorities - internally consistent, adapted to each audience.
DuPont
THE SITUATION
DuPont has many divisions. We worked with the Mobility & Materials and Water Solutions units. Their customers and industries differed, but the problem was the same. DuPont had led by making best-in-class materials that let clients do amazing things. Now the technologies had matured, competitors performed almost as well, and they charged far less. DuPont needed to understand customer needs to shore up loyalty and retention.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
We conducted research down the value chain, to intermediaries and OEMs. In automotive, customers wanted support and advice as the shift from gas to electric created new challenges. In filtration, we learned how the needs and buying behavior of ingredient manufacturers differ from water providers. Those findings shaped DuPont’s service model strategies.
THE BENEFITS
The insights we uncovered helped DuPont make strategic decisions. They sold the Mobility & Materials business in 2022 for $11 billion. Meanwhile, Water Solutions has become one of the strongest growth engines at DuPont.
Gregory Lombardi Design
THE SITUATION
Like many design firms and creative agencies, Gregory Lombardi Design (GLDI) carried its founder’s name. After 30 years of success, the brand needed to grow beyond the founding principal. New partners and lines of business were taking the company past its original focus on premium New England homes - and when the founder retires, the brand must survive.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
First we had to pin down what set Gregory Lombardi Design apart, so everything we did would reinforce it rather than erode it. We had long conversations with Greg about his origin story and his point of view. We talked with partners and employees about the culture and their growth ambitions. We asked clients and partner companies - architects, builders, interior designers - what it was like to work with GLDI. And we analyzed this rarified segment of the industry to uncover how GLDI did things differently. Together, these perspectives let us map the ecosystem and understand how everyone worked on a project. That revealed the client interactions where GLDI, as the landscape architect on the team, could build stronger connections and develop designs that held deep meaning for the family. It also ranked the success factors for growth beyond New England.
THE BENEFITS
Change is hard for founders when it feels like letting go of something they built. Our recommended name and tagline changes have not been fully adopted. The logotype, though, is now simply “Lombardi” - keeping the heritage, stepping back from the individual, and opening the door to a broader future.
Citi
THE SITUATION
Like many organizations, Citi’s customer service channels had grown organically and still ran in siloes. Move from chat to phone and the thread was lost - customers explained themselves all over again, costing everyone time and effort. That held back automated channels like chatbots, voicebots, and IVR, and made it impossible to suggest a channel switch even when it would help the customer or the company.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
We talked with stakeholders across the siloes to inventory every customer service channel and its performance and cost. Then we surveyed customers about their behavior and preferences. Combining the inside-looking-out and outside-looking-in perspectives, we designed an ecosystem where each channel plays the role that best fits customer goals. We mapped intake, escalation and de-escalation paths, and the emotional moments worth extra time.
THE BENEFITS
Joining the siloed channels into one service ecosystem let Citi improve experiences while controlling costs. Automated channels handle intake, so simple tasks go fast, and customers can escalate to detailed or human help without repeating themselves. The system is flexible, and customers choose the channels that suit them best.
Hikma
THE SITUATION
Hikma, a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, had grown dramatically through acquisitions around the world, and employee culture had eroded along the way. The expert hired to repair that culture brought us in to uncover the brand, knowing it would be crucial to uniting employees across the globe.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
Finding differentiation in a generic pharmaceutical company sounded like a paradox. We talked with doctors and pharmacists around the world and heard the same underlying problem in different words: pharmaceutical supply chains are fragile. No one company could solve that alone, but the companies that cared mattered. That made Hikma’s origin story a huge asset. Founded by a Palestinian refugee in Jordan, Hikma believed in local investment, and with each international acquisition it invested in local communities instead of merely profiting from them. Hikma cared, and it called out the problems its customers faced. Our rearticulated positioning became part of a new employee culture program that brought the company together, from top leadership to teams around the world.
THE BENEFITS
Today, Hikma’s brand marketing focuses on accessibility to medicines - a direct answer to both the costs and supply chain challenges of the pharmaceutical industry. They have become the leading provider of medicines in the Middle East and North Africa, and their growth in other markets (like the US) are contributing greatly to solving healthcare’s systemic challenges.
Welle
THE SITUATION
A company called NAPPI asked for a website redesign. We insisted on following our process to understand why, and determine how to help them succeed.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
NAPPI trains medical workers to protect themselves and their patients from violence in the healthcare workplace. After a workshop with its leaders, we followed our learning agenda to nurses and administrators at healthcare systems, to NAPPI’s Master Trainers - some of them former nurses - and to an analysis of the competition. Healthcare sees 4x the workplace violence of other industries, and 1 in 8 nurses in the US has been assaulted at work. Competitors taught physical defense, restraints, and intervention. NAPPI taught behavioral awareness, management, and prevention. The system was so respected, and the trainers so well liked, that nurses defended the brand whenever new employees questioned the name - NAPPI sounds like a hair insult or a British diaper. To grow its public image and client base, the company needed a rebrand. The problem ran deeper than the rhymes: NAPPI stood for Non-Abusive Psychological and Physical Intervention, but its trauma-informed program was far more than reactive “intervention”. It was proactive management, and that was what set NAPPI apart. The name had to point that way. We landed on Welle - a healthy, calm-sounding name with a unique spelling drawn from the German word for “wave”. Then we executed the whole rebrand: parking lot signs, trainer uniforms, educational materials online and off. And of course, the website.
THE BENEFITS
Before working with us, NAPPI won business by reputation alone. After the rebrand, they went outbound - email marketing, trade shows, and more. When the pandemic overwhelmed healthcare workers, Welle could turn to new customers, like museums struggling to enforce masking policies. The brand investment let them carry that trust into new markets and adapt as conditions changed. Today, Welle continues to serve hospital systems as their primary clientele.
Wells Fargo
THE SITUATION
Wells Fargo’s mortgage business had spent about 12 years planning an upgrade to its lending policy reference materials. The content had fragmented so badly that nobody could tell which conflicting answer was correct. The tech platform was chosen, but the team disagreed on what form the app should take and which features it needed.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
With the project threatening to stall, the tech vendor (SDL) brought us in to break the stalemate. We insisted on watching the mortgage origination teams work, promising not to slow them down. Our ethnographic research surfaced things no one had put in the spotlight before. First, everyone had at least two monitors, sometimes three - so the app could own a full screen instead of a sidebar. Second, the teams worked closely together but held very different roles and experience levels. Some needed an answer fast, mid-phone call; others needed to weigh underwriting criteria carefully. Veterans knew how to get things done; new team members didn’t know where the best practices lived. Borrowing design principles from everyday consumer services like Amazon and Spotify, we helped design an app that felt less like an encyclopedia and more like a team coordination platform, where novices could learn from expert coworkers.
The BENEFITS
New insight and inspiration got the project moving again. A shared understanding of how the teams worked - and how their needs shifted by role and by situation - shaped a flexible, team-oriented platform. Wells Fargo still uses the Tridion platform today, even after RWS acquired SDL.
TIAA
THE SITUATION
TIAA had a serious customer and asset retention problem. Three life events pushed customers to close their accounts, take their money, and leave: job changes, retirement, and the death of an account holder. A 1% improvement in retention was worth more than $300 million in assets under management (AUM) every year.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
TIAA had already invested in a smooth retirement experience, and retirement was what the money was for. So we focused on job changes and death events. We learned how differently people feel about finding a better job (voluntary) and losing one (involuntary). We heard about the emotional rollercoaster of losing a loved one, and how differently each family recovers. From those findings we built customer journey maps, experience design principles, and service innovation concepts that aligned teams across TIAA around these life event experiences.
THE BENEFITS
TIAA beat the +1% retention goal and cleared an obstacle to growth. Since our project ended, AUM has grown 1.6x, from about $930 billion in 2018 to $1.5 trillion in 2026.
Fidelity
THE SITUATION
An intrapreneur at Fidelity saw that the company’s digital security and server capacity could support a secure online storage service.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
We helped position the offering and bring it to market. Customer research and market analysis showed that secure online storage wasn’t enough, because anyone could copy it. Fidelity’s longevity outlasts any cloud company, so the service could be positioned as part of a complete family transition plan - one built to outlast generations. FidSafe was born. It has beneficiary settings like a financial services account, and it guides customers on the documents their successors will need. The website, app, and promotions across other Fidelity properties all reinforce that value proposition.
THE BENEFITS
FidSafe is a valuable adjacent service to Fidelity’s core business, and it starts conversations between Fidelity account holders and their adult children. Those conversations lead to better preparedness and a smoother handoff of the relationship to the next generation. The result: intergenerational customer and asset retention.