Suzanne El-Moursi Named Chair of IxDA’s Interaction|13 Conference

SapientNitro, part of Sapient (NASDAQ: SAPE), announced that Suzanne El-Moursi has been selected to chair Interaction Design Association’s (IxDA) Interaction|13 annual conference in North America to be held in February 2013. She was selected as a result of IxDA’s first open call for a conference chair, a role that will help organize the annual event that gathers the global interaction design community to stretch its minds, sharpen its skills, and inspire each other. Starting in June, El-Moursi will be leading the call for the North American city to host the event in February 2013.

"On behalf of the IxDA Board of Directors, it is with great pleasure that we are announcing Suzanne El-Moursi as the chair of our 2013 Interaction Conference,” said Janna DeVylder, President, IxDA. "Suzanne’s global experience, expertise, and vision for the industry and the conference stood out from the high quality pool of applicants. Suzanne embodies the evolution of the interaction design industry with her multi-disciplinary background of strong creative chops, applied research, anthropology, and technical understanding, as well as her commitment to teaching and mentoring about how interaction design can truly shape the way businesses work and the world we live in.”

El-Moursi, a creative director based in SapientNitro’s Chicago office, leads the region’s experience design team for a diverse portfolio of world-class client brands such as Chrysler, Target, and Hyatt. Suzanne and her team collaborate with clients to define their digital strategies and design meaningful brand moments that better connect companies to their customers. Additionally, she serves as the global user experience lead within SapientNitro’s Financial Services Center of Excellence, where she advises and consults on trends in social commerce and digital innovations that are transforming digital financial solutions and the way customer behavior has shifted to new engagement paradigms.

El-Moursi added, "In today’s multi-channel digital world, designers are at the crux of the conceptualization and creation of innovative products and service offerings that fulfill the aspirations and unmet needs of consumers. Interaction design is a fast-growing area of expertise and I look forward to being part of this seminal event to share how multi-channel strategy and interaction design can identify unmet human needs and shape our collective experience.”

Suzanne has worked for a variety of international corporations in design strategy positions, including IBM Global Services, HSBC Bank-NA, University of Chicago – NORC, and GE Healthcare, on a variety of international projects leading multiple multi-disciplinary teams in Africa, Middle East, and Europe. Most recently before joining SapientNitro, El-Moursi held the position of principal designer within the global design team at GE Healthcare, which serves as an internal design group tasked with transforming and advancing the next generation of healthcare business strategies and the global healthcare product portfolio through deep understanding of the human user journeys (patient, physician, nurse) as they engage with complex healthcare ecosystems.

El-Moursi is also a notable lecturer and Adjunct Faculty teaching graduate level courses on Innovation Strategy, User-Centered Design, Digital Media & Design, and Design Research at IIT Institute of Design and DePaul University in Chicago. She is also a student herself at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business completing her Executive MBA in General Management with a concentration in Strategy, with an expected graduation date in March 2012.

About IxDA

IxDA (www.ixda.org) intends to improve the human condition by advancing the discipline of Interaction Design by fostering a community of people that choose to come together to support this intention. IxDA relies on individual initiative, contribution, sharing and self-organization as the primary means for us to achieve our goals. With more than 20,000 members and over 80 local groups around the world, the IxDA network actively focuses on interaction design issues for the practitioner, no matter their level of experience. IxDA was founded in 2003 and incorporated as a not-for-profit in late 2005.

About SapientNitro

SapientNitro^SM, part of Sapient®, is an integrated marketing and technology services firm. We create and engineer highly relevant experiences that accelerate business growth and fuel brand advocacy for our clients. By combining multi-channel marketing, multi-channel commerce, and the technology that binds them, we influence customer behavior across the spectrum of content, communication and commerce channels, resulting in deeper, more meaningful relationships between customers and brands. SapientNitro services global leaders such as Citi, The Coca-Cola Company, Mars, Singapore Airlines, Target, and Vodafone through our operations in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. For more information, visit www.sapientnitro.com or follow us on Twitter @sapientnitro.

Sapient is a registered service mark of Sapient Corporation.