BERLIN – Prophet, a global growth and business transformation consultancy hires Layla Keramat as a partner in its Berlin office. The design expert will be responsible for helping to drive the expansion of the firm’s Experience and Innovation practice in EMEA.

Prior to Prophet, Layla held executive creative director roles at frog and Interbrand– defining and designing innovative digital solutions with her teams – as well as Sony and Deutsche Telekom, serving a client-side role.

“We are thrilled to welcome Layla to Prophet and have her exceptional capabilities and stimulating thinking drive the development and growth of our Experience and Innovation practice in the region,” commented Tobias Bärschneider, EMEA Regional Lead & Partner. “Prophet is going through a period of exceptional growth in these disruptive times and this particular area of our business is seeing high demand as clients look to sustain competitive advantage through innovative business solutions. Layla’s human-centered approach will undoubtedly help our clients drive truly transformative growth.”

With more than 25 years of experience working both client and consultancy side in Germany and the U.S., Layla’s subject matter expertise and multidisciplinary work in product and service design has delivered breakthrough solutions for brands such as BMW, IKEA, Samsung and Siemens.

“I’m excited to join Prophet as this period of unprecedented demand to accelerate the pace of digital transformation continues. Businesses have an amazing opportunity to shape their future rather than react to it and I’m looking forward to helping clients explore the capabilities needed, identifying the best experience design solutions and bringing them to market,” said Layla.

Layla is a jury member of ADCE and formerly the UX Awards, as well as an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She can also be found regularly speaking at universities and industry events.

NEW YORK – The non-profit group, C200 announced that Prophet Partner Melissa Goldner will be the newest member of its C-Ahead program.

C-Ahead is an exclusive development program created to support and celebrate female leaders while providing specific actionable content that focuses on the skills and experience necessary for women to succeed in significant positions at major corporations. New members require nominations and those accepted participate in a 6-month virtual program that aims to build leadership skills by providing educational and networking opportunities with other C200 members.

“One of my passions is to empower other women in the workplace. I’m thrilled to have been given the opportunity to join this wonderful program,” said Goldner. “My goal is to apply these learnings and share them with my fellow female leaders to help them become more successful both in and outside of Prophet.”

Goldner, who joined Prophet as a partner in January, has many years of leadership experience at client services organizations, including Slalom and Ogilvy & Mather where she was known for helping clients reinvent their business from top to bottom. She has worked with clients across consumer goods, finance, insurance, media and entertainment and other industries to drive organization-wide transformations, enhance digital collaboration and create high-performing teams. The C-Ahead program will help her further development in these areas and grow in her leadership role at Prophet while offering networking opportunities, access to exclusive events, and other educational programs.

“C200 and its programs are designed to grow and inspire future women leaders,” said IBM Senior Partner Kelly Watson, mentor to Goldner and member of C200. “Since connecting with Melissa, I knew she was in the position to impact the advancement of female business leaders. Her passion to learn and share her wisdom makes her a terrific addition to the program.”

Goldner has already learned important lessons in her first few weeks as a C-Ahead member and couldn’t be more thrilled about the support she’s received from not only her C-Ahead peers but also Prophet.

“Supporting women leaders is something that I’m extremely passionate about said Prophet’s President Chiaki Nishino. “As the executive sponsor of DEI and one of the founders of the Prophet’s Women in Leadership effort, which aims to harness the power of women leaders and help them thrive at Prophet and beyond, I am thrilled for Melissa to bring her learnings to our team and continue to grow as a leader at our firm and help us grow as a firm.”

Goldner says that even if she can be a small piece of another person’s success, it makes the entire experience worthwhile.

SAN FRANCISCO – Prophet, a global consultancy, has added five new leaders who will enhance the firm’s digital marketing, transformation, customer experience and digital design capabilities. These new hires will also join Prophet’s growing bench of senior female leaders as the firm continues its commitment to put women in senior-level roles, elevate their voices and build a more gendered-balanced workforce.

“From adapting to the realities of a post-pandemic world to facing unprecedented levels of change and disruption, companies require new thinking and transformative approaches to compete in today’s market,” says Michael Dunn, Prophet’s CEO and Chairman, “These new leaders have a wealth of expertise assisting brands with transformation, marketing, design and experience all through the lens of digital and will be vital team members as we continue to help our clients unlock uncommon growth.”

Dunn adds, “Having a diverse set of voices from a variety of backgrounds enables us to provide the best service to our clients. We are excited to add these five highly accomplished women to the Prophet family and continue our commitment to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce.”

The new hires are:

• Amanda Thurston, Partner, New York: As a member of the firm’s Marketing and Sales Practice, she will guide data and platform transformation efforts to generate demand and above market growth for clients. Before joining Prophet, she was chief marketing officer at Group M, North America, and marketing services leader at IBM iX.
• Caitlyn Phillips, Partner, New York: Philips brings 20 years of experience spanning advertising, consulting and innovation to the Digital Practice after building out and leading CX for Wunderman Thompson’s east region as well as IBM and Amazon.
• Layla Keramat, Partner, Berlin: She brings 25+ years of experience defining and designing innovative solutions with a human (and planet) centered design approach. Keramat has designed complex systems of service and product for connected car, future mobility, future learning, telecommunication, IoT (in home and industry) and smart cities shaping innovative experiences for global brands (BMW, IKEA, China UnionPay, Deutsche Telekom, Porsche) and startups in markets across the U.S., Europe, Middle East and China.
• Amy Laskin, Associate Partner, New York: Laskin focuses on digital marketing and content strategies to help companies achieve growth and transformation. Her prior experience includes leadership positions at Ogilvy, Bed Bath & Beyond and WW (formerly Weight Watchers). And at R/GA, she led content strategy for the global B2B unification of the Verizon
• Susan Hosking, Associate Partner, San Francisco: Joining Prophet’s Experience and Innovation practice, Hosking is a product strategist with expertise in creative product and service development as well as business strategy. Previously, she was senior manager at Bain & Company and a design leader in its innovation practice, ADAPT.

“Customers’ demands are constantly evolving and companies need robust strategies to provide the experiences, products and services they require,” said Chiaki Nishino, President at Prophet, “These women leaders have proven track records of developing solutions to complex problems and will help our clients achieve transformative growth.”

As part of these hires, Prophet is enhancing its marketing and experience transformation capabilities. Thurston has expertise in demand generation and enacting data-led transformations while Laskin specializes in digital content creation and multi-channel storytelling across a variety of disciplines including ecommerce, brand strategy and development, digital strategy, social media and more. Phillips, Keramat and Hosking each bring a deep and diverse set of capabilities to uncover human-centered, innovative experiences for global brands.

Mat Zucker, senior partner and co-head of the Marketing and Sales practice comments, “I’m excited that these talented experts are joining our stellar global sales and marketing team. A digital marketing strategy is vital for growth and companies need to be ready to respond to new opportunities when they arise, invest in content and capabilities to meet the moment.”

About Prophet

SHANGHAI – Prophet, a leading global growth and business transformation consultancy, has been recognized with two awards at the Digital Impact Awards Asia 2021. The consultancy received a gold award and a silver award in the “Best Use of Digital in the Financial Services Sector” category for its work with AXA and MB Bank respectively.

With over a decade of experience in Europe, this was the first Digital Impact Awards to have taken place in Asia, celebrating the creativity and innovation of digital work across the region.

Prophet’s distinctions are a testament of its excellence in creating impactful digital experiences and strategies for clients in the region. The project awarded the gold award was the innovative digital customer experience Prophet developed for AXA, which saw its first humanized user interface called Emma. Prophet’s work with MB Bank, which transformed it into becoming a digital-first, customer-centric bank in Vietnam, was given a silver award.

“We are thrilled to have been recognized for two awards at the Digital Impact Awards Asia 2021,” said Alan Casey, Partner and Asia Regional Lead at Prophet. “Companies in Asia are transforming at a fast pace to meet the evolving demands of the local consumers. We are honored to have worked with many of these clients to help them drive uncommon growth and are excited to see the impact our work has had on their businesses.”