Why Gender Inclusive Design? Product and Service Design for Everyone

Event Details

Speaker Series | Panel Discussion

Session Synopsis: How can the emerging field of Gender Analytics help leaders identify risks and uncover new opportunities in product and service design?  Join this exciting panel for a discussion with business leaders on how gender analysis helped them to find new markets, innovate, improve performance, and grow their businesses. 

About our speakers:

Vanessa Iarocci
Vanessa is President of McCarthy Uniforms (Canada’s largest supplier of school uniforms). She previously held progressively more senior roles spanning corporate finance, strategy and operations. Most recently, she was Global Head, High Net Worth Brand at RBC (leading marketing innovation, client engagement & corporate citizenship). Previously, she held roles at PwC and TD Bank Financial Group. Vanessa has also led design-thinking, strategy and innovation initiatives for global companies on behalf of Fresh Squeezed Ideas, an award winning predictive analytics, behavioural economics & culture consultancy as well as directly for a number of private companies and innovation hubs.

Sylvia Kwan
Sylvia is the Chief Investment Officer at Ellevest, a technology-enabled financial company built by women, for women. In this role, she is responsible for creating the investment solutions, strategies, portfolios, and proprietary algorithms that drive Ellevest’s investment recommendations across both automated digital and customized private wealth advisory services. She guides the firm’s investment philosophy and leads the development and due diligence of Ellevest’s impact and gender forward investments.

Nitasha Mehta
Nitasha Mehta is an experienced digital marketer with over 15 years of expertise in e-commerce, product marketing, CRM, and shopper marketing. Nitasha graduated from New York University with a BS in Communications, and received her MBA from the University of California, Irvine. She has previously held roles at Amazon and Samsung, and she now heads CPG Brand Partnerships at Boxed, working directly with over 60 CPG's. She's extremely passionate about technology and equal opportunity, and she launched the RethinkPink initiative at Boxed--which led to Boxed becoming the first and only US retailer to take a stand against gender pricing inequities. 

Kathy Moscou
Dr. Kathy Moscou is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University, Faculty of Design and Fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Governance, Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector at the University of Toronto. She holds an adjunct appointment at Brock University, Department of Health Sciences. Kathy has a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Global Health; Master’s in Public Health; and BSc Pharmacy. Her background is eclectic and unique, merging visual arts and health. Kathy’s art focuses on Black cultural aesthetics, contemporary design for social justice- which overlaps her research of equity and empowerment of Black and Indigenous youth in Canada, United States, and across the African diaspora. Kathy’s Ph.D. research of pharmacogovernance and comparative health policy addresses equity in drug safety and governance to foster healthy communities. Her art has been exhibited in Art Gallery of Southwest Manitoba, Royal Ontario Museum, M. Rosetta Hunter Gallery, Seattle and Bellevue Art Museum.  www.moscouart.com

The Gender Analytics: Possibilities (GA:P) Event Series is an exciting multi-session online series. This unique online experience will highlight how emerging areas of analytics applied to issues around diversity and gender shape risks and opportunities for many organizations, operations and outcomes. Experts in data analytics, gender, and diversity, and inclusion more broadly will share their research and insights to an audience of business, academic, and government leaders. 

The GA:P Event Series is being planned jointly by two Rotman research centers, the Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) and TD Management Data and Analytics Lab co-organized by Susan Christoffersen (Co-Academic Director, TD MDAL), Sarah Kaplan (Director, GATE) and Matt Mitchell (Co-Academic Director, TD MDAL).