Company
Human-centered digital transformation
About Whitespace
Whitespace is a strategic digital transformation consultancy. We guide in-house leaders who want a human-centered approach to solving their most pressing business challenges.
Headquartered in Switzerland and with roots in Silicon Valley, our senior team combines domain expertise, design, data, and technology to deliver enterprise product strategies as well as world-class customer and employee experiences.
Our core team and network of senior design, product, and technology professionals collaborate across Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific regions to advise global brands as they transform their businesses.
Our mission: human-centricity
At Whitespace, we are dedicated to changing how organizations approach problem-framing, problem-solving, and the change process itself.
When adopting Agile or SAFe, most organizations over-index on technology and under-invest in design. Yet technology investments (including AI) succeed only when human-centricity drives business strategy.
Human-centered design, with its emphasis on continuous discovery and experimentation, is the missing piece in the transformation journey. Completing this puzzle ... that’s our mission.
Decades of working in inward-focused, siloed-by-department, output-driven mental models have resulted in never-ending re-organizations, unintended internal and external consequences, and a disillusioned workforce tired of the transformation merry-go-round. "Transformation as usual" clearly doesn't work.
What works better is transformation initiated and supported from the C-suite, yet led and executed by empowered teams at the grassroots. So what can leaders do to empower their grassroots teams? It's all about design-driven ways of working and outcome-based incentive structures, which require new mindsets and new muscles.
That's where we come in. We're digital diplomats, able to smooth out the rough edges of change and sidestep the politics and turf battles that stifle progress.
Working with us, our clients start thinking differently and building those new collaborative cultures. They begin breaking down silos, modernizing their ways of working, and shifting incentives toward outcomes. It's what we call achieving a higher Return on Human®.
Our USP
Enterprise and mid-market clients regularly choose us over Deloitte, McKinsey, BCG, PWC, and other blue-chip firms. Similarly, SMEs, startups, and public-sector clients prefer us to local digital marketing agencies and offshore IT service providers. Here's why ...
Genuine trust
Despite our relatively small size compared to high-priced management consultancies and offshore IT conglomerates, global industry leaders continually select us as a key partner to work on business-critical initiatives. Reassuringly, we have the people, track record, ecosystem partners, geographic reach, and orchestration abilities to go head-to-head with top-tier firms – without all the overhead, hidden fees, or smoke and mirrors. Refreshingly, clients trust us to tell them the truth and steer them on the right path, even when it means less financial return for us. We value impactful relationships over transactional ones.
Quality outcomes
Clients come to us when they need senior practitioners – experts who bring wisdom gained through years of challenging projects, problem-solving, and real-world delivery of products and services. Clients appreciate our deep specialty knowledge and expertise, as well as our multidisciplinary ways of working and innovating. If the outcome matters as much if not more than the output, we're the right partner for you.
Transparent costs
Unlike most larger consultancies, Whitespace is not a body shop. We do not ‘pitch and switch’, winning work with senior consultants and then staffing the work with juniors. The ‘A’ players you see in the pitch are the ‘A’ players you get on your projects – from start to finish. We maintain a low overhead, preferring to invest more in the best consultants and less in big offices, marketing campaigns, and multiple levels of account coordination and management.
Our team and capacity
Whitespace is built around a core team and extended network of senior practitioners in business, design, and technology. We have a global footprint and a deep bench of talent available to assist your organization with everything from product strategy and design to software development, AI, and data management.
Whitespace attracts top business, design, and technical talent and can scale to meet the demands of the world's biggest organizations. People who join Whitespace embody our mission of creating business and social value through the power of human-centricity.
Core team
Julia Borkenhagen
Julia has been a design leader and a driving force in the Enterprise UX space for over 20 years.
Jesse Anton
Jesse believes that design and technology have the power to transform how business impacts humanity.
Marc Dillenseger
Marc leverages his strategic finance and operational expertise to promote profitability and efficiency.
Steven Ritchey
Steven has 25+ years of experience helping organizations conceive and design the right products for customers and employees.
Francis Martin
Francis brings 20+ years as a project manager, Agile practitioner, and business analyst in complex enterprise environments.
Philippe Tarbouriech
Philippe is a senior technologist with 30+ years of European and US-based experience at start-ups and large organizations.
Nathalie Raux-Copin
With over 25 years in design leadership roles, Nathalie firmly believes HCD can positively influence behaviors toward a sustainable future.
Peter Horvath
Peter is a highly driven strategy consultant with a passion for the intersection of design and business, where magic happens.
Jasmina Travnjak
Jasmina is a software engineer whose skills also include UX, business analysis, pedagogy, and design systems.
Roos Durieux
Roos is a holistic designer with a passion for user research, employee experience, and change management.
Dr. Gyles Morrison
Gyles helps pharma, medtech, and healthcare companies make products and services for clinicians and patients. He coined the term Clinical UX.
Jean-Michel Claus
Jean-Michel translates designs into working software, and he continually explores new frameworks and methods.
Frédéric Mauro
Frédéric brings 15+ years of experience in regulatory compliance, security management, and data privacy standards.
Quinn Bauriedel
Quinn is an award-winning actor and coach who has worked with some of the world's largest companies for over 15 years.
Our human-centered approach
The Whitespace approach combines Design Research and DesignOps practices with well-established Agile SDLC and DevOps practices, bringing what are often siloed or conflicting methodologies into a cohesive whole. We aim to create a shared understanding between business and IT while reducing the project risk associated with large-scale transformation programs.
Our offering spans web, mobile, wearables, connected devices, blockchain, and spatial computing – and our tech stack is multi-vendor and multi-cloud. We specialize in developing and operating cloud-based applications and services, and our teams provision and manage cloud resources using code and automated infrastructure services.
Whitespace is a key player in the field of data usability and user empowerment. Data Management and Artificial Intelligence are core areas of expertise for Whitespace. We have 50+ nearshore data scientists and machine learning experts, as well as several senior AI architects with experience in LLMs, RAG, and agent orchestration.
In 2024, Whitespace partnered with Denodo, the leading provider of data virtualization solutions. This partnership aims to enable faster, compliant, usable, accessible, and secure access to (near real-time) data by business decision-makers. Together, we are working to ensure that GenAI reduces the complexity of leveraging complex data sources, in turn enabling non-specialists to explore and query data without relying extensively on data scientists and costly data pipelines.
Enterprise Design Systems are a core strength and major differentiator for Whitespace. We are among the leading players in this space and our unique solution, Edelweiss Design System, is saving our clients millions per year in development and maintenance costs.
Security, compliance, scalability, performance, usability, and accessibility are baked into our design and SDLC practices. Our development subcontractors are all ISO 27001 certified, Whitespace’s own ISO 27001 certification will be completed in early 2025, and we adhere to ISO 9241-210 and WCAG standards for user-centered and accessible design. We have extensive experience building FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliant solutions for Top 10 Pharma clients.
Our partners & communities
Denodo is a leader in data management. The award-winning Denodo Platform is the leading data integration, management, and delivery platform using a logical approach to enable self-service BI, advanced analytics, hybrid/multi-cloud integration, and enterprise data services. Realizing more than 400% ROI and millions of dollars in benefits, Denodo’s customers across large enterprises and mid-market companies in 30+ industries have received payback in less than 6 months.
Businesses count on Adobe to help them meet the challenges of digital transformation. With Adobe Experience Cloud they can harness their data and deliver personalized experiences that drive business growth and customer loyalty. As an Adobe Solution Partner, Whitespace leverages the full suite of Adobe technologies to deliver well-designed, personal, and consistent user experiences that delight customers and employees alike.
Microsoft enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As a Microsoft Partner, Whitespace works with our customers to build human-centered business solutions on Microsoft 365 and Azure.
SmartShape is a leader in industrial design, mechanical engineering, and product manufacturing, with operations in Cleveland, Ohio, and Shenzhen, China. Working in partnership with SmartShape enables Whitespace to service Industrial and Medtech clients with integrated design, software, and hardware capabilities. Our companies share the same values of human-centered design and best-in-class quality.
The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. This group shared the opinion that life science R&D was changing beyond recognition, and that organizations could not afford to ‘go it alone’ in order to integrate emerging technologies and continue to deliver life-changing therapies to patients. Today, Whitespace is a member of the UX in Life Sciences (UXLS) Steering Committee and is actively involved in several key Pistoia initiatives, including Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and the 'Lab of the Future'.
DesignOps Assembly (DOA) is a global network of DesignOps practitioners at all levels, working in top Tech companies, boutique Design agencies, and everything in between. The DOA community is spread out in multiple countries and regions around the globe. Each chapter focuses on local and global design ops issues. Whitespace is a founding member of the Switzerland DOA chapter. Together with DesignOps leaders across the country, we organize events and get-togethers to share knowledge and discuss the future of DesignOps in Switzerland.
The Service Design Network (SDN), founded in 2004, is the leading non-profit institution for expertise in service design and a driver of global growth, development, and innovation within the practice. Through national and international events, online and print publications, and coordination with academic institutions, SDN's member-based network connects multiple roles within agencies, business, and government to strengthen the impact of service design within the public and private sectors. SDN is a global, open-minded network, focused on knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and exchange.
The Clinical User Experience Association (CUXA) is the leading authority on user experience in healthcare. The organization provides events, training, and networking opportunities to improve the use and access of healthcare technology and services. Founded and led by Dr. Gyles Morrison, CUXA offers industry training via the Clinical UX Academy. The Clinical UX course trains clinicians, designers, and other professionals to work effectively on a variety of healthcare projects, equipping them with core competencies in Clinical UX.
UX Geneva is one of Switzerland's largest grassroots event series at the intersection of Technology, Business, and Human-Centered Design. With nearly 2500 members from all over the region, including neighboring France and the Swiss-German cantons, this meetup has grown into a rich and vibrant community that includes professionals from the UX, technology, business, HR, government, and international civil servant fields.
The Swiss Center for Design and Health works in the spaces where design meets health: the question of how health can be improved through design is at the forefront of all of their services, research collaborations, and professional development offerings. With a wide range of expertise, the SCDH supports clients from industry, science, and the public sector in the conception, development, and testing of design solutions.
