I hope everyone had a healthy and relaxing holiday season. 2019 was a busy one for our UXPA International Board! We presented some great online courses and webinars, held a fantastic annual conference in Scottsdale, AZ and had our first ever Latin American conference in Chile, UXLat. We reworked our website, helped provide more support for our local chapters and published more excellent content in both our magazine and journal.
Sadly, we also had to see the departure of three of our amazing Board members, who terms ended December 2019. Jen Romano Bergstrom (past President and Past Marketing Director), Jean Fox (our Director of Finance/Treasurer extraordinaire) and Lauren Schaefer (Past Marketing Director, Director of Web). While these awesome women will be missed on the Board, they have promised to still be involved with UXPA – and I am holding them to it!!
As we welcome the first few weeks of 2020, everyone on the Board is ready for a great year. We have two new Board members, Shane McWhorter, a UX manager and director for over 30 years (as well as a UXPA member since 2001) joins us as our new Director of Finance. Jack Holmes, an independent UX researcher/designer from the UK (who is also currently serving as 2020 Conference Chair for our Baltimore conference) joins us as Director of Web. Even I picked up a new position as Director of Marketing and was re-elected as President.
So, what’s next for UXPA International?
We are putting together a great selection of short courses and educational packages for you, in addition to more issues of our magazine (we are looking for new articles!). We plan to start another mentorship cohort in the next few months and are looking into other ways to connect our members to help provide a bigger sense of community, while strengthening our chapter leadership support. We are always looking for more volunteers to join our team too! Reach out to our Director of Volunteers, Alain Robillard-Bastien (alain.robillard-bastien@uxpa.org), if you would like to be a part of our team!
UXPA International 2020 Conference planning is well underway, with registration opening soon. [A great step towards planning the conference was about defining our sponsorship opportunities, which you can see here. We are also busy reaching out to local chapters to see how we can work together on local events.
Ideas and thoughts on what you would like to see from UXPA International? We would love to hear from you. Email office@uxpa.org and share your thoughts.
Here’s to a great 2020!
Sara Mastro, UXPA Intl President and Director of Marketing.
