Primary area of expertise: Product Market Fit
Coaching focus
: Customer Discovery, Mission/Vision/Values, Human Centered Design


Sari is an innovation strategist and connection maker who takes delight in helping teams frame their challenges, understand their users and figure out what to do next. She started her career in marketing at Kraft Foods, where she focused on front-end innovation. In 1999, she launched Wishful Thinking, a consultancy which helps clients create new products, services and experiences for their customers. In addition to her consulting practice, Sari is an Adjunct Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology where she teaches Design Thinking. She is also a coach for Design for America at Northwestern University.

With degrees in Art History (MA/NYU), Business (MBA/Columbia University), and Design Methods (MA/Institute of Design at IIT), she integrates themes and approaches from many fields in her teaching and consulting practice.

Sari grew up in Peoria, Illinois, but has always been a city girl at heart. She spent over a decade in Manhattan and currently lives in downtown Chicago (after a “brief” 20 year interlude in suburban Chicago).