Mari Nakano (she/her) is a mission-driven leader who obsessively problem-solves through the lens of design and social justice, and enjoys designing diverse design teams in bureaucratic spaces. In her current role as the Director of Design at the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity’s Service Design Studio, she focuses on building strategies to scale, strengthen, and effectively apply community-centered design thinking and research practices with the aim to improve government processes, programs, services, and systems.

Prior to this role, she served as the Design Lead for UNICEF’s Office of Innovation where she focused on building a team of designers to support data scientists, engineers, and country program officers to build innovation solutions for children and families around the globe. Mari is also a Faculty Thesis Advisor at the School of Visual Arts, Design for Social Innovation Master Program, and on the Board of Advisors of the Civic Service Design Graduate Minor at Parsons, The New School. More at marinakano.com