Martha Cotton BA, MA

Martha leads Design Research for Fjord North America, the dedicated strategy, design and digital product development arm of Accenture Interactive. She has more than twenty years consulting experience, working as an applied ethnographer across multiple industries and collaborating with a range of practitioners including designers, engineers, business analysts, marcomms, and brand strategists. Prior to joining Fjord, she held leadership positions at gravitytank, HLB, Hall & Partners and Sapient. Martha is on the faculty of Northwestern University's MMM program--the Kellogg School of Management's marquee Design Thinking degree--where she developed and now teaches the Design Research curriculum.
A published author, Martha has spent her career studying how everyday people engage with products, services and brands, as well as helping her clients work differently and with a human-centered lens. She has conducted deep ethnographic research around the globe in many industries including healthcare and pharma.. As she helps her clients succeed in with their innovation portfolios, much of her work also includes a focus on corporate culture change and helping organizations learn how to get out of their own way so they can be successful in their innovation goals.