We see things differently

Our Leadership

Each of our partners has more than 30 years’ experience in operational excellence for complex enterprises. Our roots extend to the largest global industrial software development efforts, and we cut our teeth in an internationally respected technology-design firm, working with leading global brands such as IBM, Ford, Exelon, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, Bloomberg, NHS, and many others.

Consultants in a research observation room.
Johanna Hambrose.

Chief Executive Officer

Johanna Hambrose

“We have taken such care in building a team of the most talented, and kind, people I have ever had the pleasure of working alongside. ZENDA is exceptional in what we do because of who we are.”

Prior to founding ZENDA in 2016, Johanna co-founded the internationally recognized design firm Electronic Ink, leading an industry for 25 years by defining the human experience with technology-driven products. Johanna brings 30 years of business law experience, as both practitioner and business executive, to ZENDA. It is her personal commitment to excellence that distinguishes ZENDA in its promise to exceed client expectations.

Establishing ZENDA as a certified woman-owned business, Johanna has created a safe environment which supports the free exchange of ideas, challenges norms, and encourages exploration.

Bringing diverse perspectives and experiences to our work continues to attract top talent who see beyond best practices. Johanna is again transforming an industry by Seeing Business®.

Mary Caracappa.

Chief Operating Officer

Mary Caracappa

“My operational experience for 25+ years has continued to prove out that your people can often best articulate the challenges in performing their jobs. ZENDA’s approach enables your people to have a voice in solving for your business issues”

Mary joins ZENDA​ following a 25+ year, cross-disciplinary career as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and as a former client and believer in applying HCD to solve complex business problems.

An accomplished executive with a powerful blend of strategic agility, execution-focused leadership, and financial acumen, Mary steered global transformation initiatives to create efficiencies, mitigate risk, and scale businesses during significant growth periods and amid a changing regulatory environment. Her global leadership roles include Head of New Products; CAO/CIO for Merchant Banking; Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Officer; Operational Risk Head for Finance; and Head of Internal Audit for corporate functions. ​

A recognized change agent with a strong bias towards action and ability to tackle business complexities, Mary successfully led distributed work teams across disciplines and business lines to remediate operational deficiencies, build new infrastructure and capabilities, enhance internal controls, and evolve the financial reporting landscape.

Harold Hambrose.

Chief Strategy Officer

Harold Hambrose

Harold was among the first professionals forging a path for design in the technology industry. He co-founded Electronic Ink, the first design firm dedicated exclusively to the human-centered design of software, and attracted landmark projects, including operating systems, early banking machines, medical record systems, and financial services platforms.

Over thirty years of designing enterprise systems, Harold extended the voice and impact of design beyond software user interfaces. Recognizing a need for improved collaboration among the diverse disciplines inside business enterprises led to the development of operations modeling: human-centered research informing the creation of models articulating the relationships, risks, and opportunities among the enterprise’s human context, business processes, technology, and data.

Harold is the author of Wrench in the System, published by John Wiley & Sons. He has taught courses at various universities and has lectured at conferences around the world. Harold served as an expert in design and technology for international legal proceedings. He received the Alumni Achievement Award from Carnegie Mellon University for significant contributions to the design and technology industries and is a member of the Advisory Board of CMU’s College of Fine Arts.

Our Team

The ZENDERS

Our team members are well-credentialed and experienced practitioners in fields like architecture, finance, product design, sociology, cognitive science, philosophy, engineering, computer science, business management, and the law. As important as their degrees and job history is their curiosity, thoughtfulness, and sincere interest in how people organize and perform work.

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Message from 
Johanna Hambrose, CEO

"I started ZENDA in 2016 as a certified woman-owned business, to create an environment in which diversity of thought and life experiences inform the rich, multi-dimensional environments in which we work. At ZENDA, we believe that diversity in all of its forms — education, expertise, ethnicity, language, culture, perspective — ensure that an understanding and respect for the nuances that drive any work event are neither dismissed nor overlooked. Diversity, acceptance and inclusion have served as the driver in all we do and remain key to our business success."

Photo outside of a large office building.

Industry Milestones

We Have History

2020

Financial Reporting 
and Analytics Transformation

Seeing Business® unleashes workforce know-how in the improved operations for MDM, Forecasting and Close, Fortune 100 Consumer Products.

2020

Transformation in Remote Work Environment

Transformation of remote Employee Experience and infrastructure, Fortune 100 Pharma.

2019

Salesforce - Work Design

Operation model for platform integration across global sales lifecycle, Fortune 500 service company.

2018

Global Legal Operations

Rank leading OTS vendors according to the restructuring of legal operations work within a global financial services firm.

2017

Design in Enterprise Technology

Keynote address to global technology leadership team at Johnson & Johnson.

2015

US Affordable Care Act (ACA) Compliance

Top selling, award winning employer portal providing the ability to manage compliance with America’s ACA.

2013

EE: Everything Everywhere

T-Mobile and Orange merger requires a single point-of-sale terminal design that unifies two workforces into a common customer care experience.

2012

London 2012

Public access interactive displays portraying Olympic event venue energy consumption real-time.

2011

MoMA: Talk to Me

Public access interactive displays portraying Olympic event venue energy consumption real-time.

2010

SAP DKOM

Engineering Technology / Designing Innovation Keynote address to annual global developers’ conference at SAP, the world’s largest business systems developer.

2009

Wrench in the System

Wiley publishes Harold Hambrose’s book.

2008

Reassessing the Bloomberg Terminal

Harold Hambrose is selected to reimagine a powerhouse industry platform.

2007

Research in Motion becomes Blackberry

In-context consumer research and lab-based usability testing for this leading technology supplier, at the height of their success.

2006

Global Web Frameworks

Partnered with Microsoft in the design and deployment of web site design and development standards and tools. Reduced web site implementation costs by more that 60% across this global pharmaceutical company.

2005

UK National Health Service

Chosen to partner in the research and design of the NHS clinical records system.

2004

Travelocity: A New Take on Sightseeing

Reimagined location information presentation through stylized high-level tourist maps containing information about neighborhoods and popular landmarks.

2002

UK Criminal Justice Portal

Partnered with Microsoft UK to connect work among all criminal justice agencies across England, Scotland and Wales.

2001

BBC Home Visits

Design researchers visit homes throughout Britain to evaluate the brand characteristics of control, trust and ease of use, across interactive television, radio and mobile channels.

2001

Norman Nielsen Top 10 Intranets

The design of Celanese AG’s intranet is recognized as among the best employee experiences of 2001.

2000

Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Conference

Hambrose addresses “Mergers and Acquisitions: The changing practice of HCI and Design.”

1998

Reuters Pictures: New Media Archive

Hambrose led customer experience design for global photographic archive.

1997

MBNA NetAccess

Defined user experience and design of first real time access to credit card charges.

1995

Hambrose Presents at ACM World Conference

Harold presents design of Merrill Lynch’s Trusted Global Advisor user interface, winner of Microsoft Windows Open.

1993

First Data Card Services

Mainframe conversion of Call Center customer experience design.

1992

First Data Health Systems

Hambrose designs first of kind electronic medical record (EMR) and patient medical record graphical user interfaces (GUI).

1991

Citibank ATM

Hambrose designs user interface for Citibank’s first automated teller.

1990

IBM OS/2

Hambrose leads design of user experience with IBM Personal computer and mainframe platforms at IBM Warwick Software Development Laboratory.

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