Consulting Work

I help product and marketing teams organize their thoughts, incorporate user research into their processes, and develop cohesive narratives. I’ve worked with over a dozen startups and tech organizations, including LearnVest, Better Mortgage, CommonBond, Shutterstock, and Foursquare.

See my full resume and recommendations on Linkedin >>

Posts and Presentations

Copywriting for UX  [Medium | SlideShare]

You are the best user researcher ever  [Medium | SlideShare]

User Interviews: A Primer  [Medium | SlideShare]

How to salvage a "bad" user interview  [Medium | SlideShare]

How to map your fears  [Medium]

Kind Words

“I’ve never worked with anyone nearly as good as Talisa when it comes to wrangling just a ton of raw data into a story that’s so clear and actionable. You can feel everyone in the room lean forward and see lightbulbs go off whenever she’s at bat sharing what she’s learned. ”

— Andre de la Cruz, UX Designer at Shutterstock

“Her wisdom and experience have been a game changer for us. By having her to be a part of product planning we saved months of experimental iterations and got right down to the heart of the solution.”

— Will Larche, VP of Engineering at Romio

“Talisa is a clarifying, calming force of nature. She’s really great at framing complex topics and organizing efforts to defeat them, even in the face of extreme ambiguity. For example, she jumped on an effort to define a product which required a tremendous amount of guesswork (sometimes called “hypotheses”) followed by a huge data synthesis effort to validate our approach. She kept our process on track and gave us results we could build on. I would work with Talisa again any day.”

— Dan Mason, Group Product Owner at Shutterstock Editorial

“Her ability to utilize language across multiple business units, and with multiple audiences in mind, to simplify and explain a complex business problem is unparalleled. I can not overstate what a joy it is to work with Talisa. She makes those around her better.”

— Taylor Salditch, Director of Marketing at LearnVest

“Talisa has the rare ability to see the big picture while flawlessly executing around the details. ”

— Meghan Paul, VP of Product at LearnVest

“Talisa balances complex business strategy among many stakeholders (product, operations, and marketing) while maintaining a core focus on the user and making execution look easy.”

— Vishal Bhalla, Sr Director of Growth and Analytics at LearnVest

“We’ve worked on a number of projects including one that redefined an entire workflow and set of deliverables. She considered the user’s experience at every step of the process and added delightful details along the way. Working with her is like a breath of fresh air. It’s just easy. She comes through every time.”

— Polly Ng, Director of UX at LearnVest

“One of the strongest strategic thinkers I’ve ever worked with (while also having an eye for the details that separate an ok execution from a great one).”

— Ashley Simon, Sr Manager of Business Development at Foursquare

“Talisa is great at pulling people back from the ledge when they’re stressed.”

— Former Student at General Assembly

“[Talisa] excels at working in fast-paced environments where change is the only constant.”

— Brynne Zuccaro, Director of Integrated Marketing at Foursquare