Wendy Castleman

Hi. I’m Wendy Castleman.

I’m mostly retired. I’ve kept the work I care about most: coaching, advising, and speaking about what it takes to keep an organization truly focused on its customers.

At Intuit, I spent a decade helping build Design for Delight, which brought Design Thinking and Lean Startup into the company’s culture. It was a priority for two CEOs and a passion of founder Scott Cook. For more than five years I led the Innovation Catalysts, a network of employees who helped teams across Intuit put it into practice. [See: Harvard Business Review, 2011.]

What I’m proudest of is where those people went next. Former catalysts have gone on to be Chief Product Officers, Chief Design Officers, and other executive roles. Even a decade after I left Intuit, I regularly meet with former catalysts who point to that time and those lessons as being pivotal to their careers.  Although I was involved in the cultural transformation, it was the PEOPLE who were my biggest impact.

My book, Relentless Customer Focus, gives product leaders a clear way to assess how customer-focused their organization really is, and how to improve. [https://a.co/d/0bLQmkW5 ]

I’m available for coaching and advising leaders who are trying to make their organizations genuinely customer-focused, and for public speaking on the same subject. I no longer take on consulting or develop and lead training. [wendy@wendycastleman.com ]

Background

• PhD in cognitive and perceptual psychology, University of Texas at Austin

• 30 years in experience design, research, strategy, and leadership

• Teacher and coach at Cal Poly; 20 years teaching facilitative leadership and design thinking

• Angel investor and business coach for startups and intrapreneurial teams