Background

Background

Strategy & Design Consultant


UpstartED logo — Canadian non-profit co-founded and led by Diana Baranga-Mazhar, focused on equitable design and education innovation.

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UPSTARTED — 2016 to 2024

Founder &

Executive Director

Led UpstartED through strategic shifts, designing and scaling educational programs that prioritize equity and impact to five Canadian provinces impacting over 6K+ beneficiaries. Oversaw diverse teams, managed multi-stakeholder partnerships with companies including Google, Shopify, SAP and Deloitte, and directed initiatives to support equity-deserving youth in Canada’s educational and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Designed and implemented Dialogue's client engagement model, crafting personalized onboarding and engagement journeys to meet diverse user needs across industries. Spearheaded end-user engagement strategies with a focus on user-centered design principles, achieving adoption rates that exceeded industry standards and driving platform utilization across 100+ companies.

With over a decade of experience across roles and sectors, I have woven a career that leverages design as a tool for solving complex challenges and serving people, communities, and the planet. My journey—a hybrid path driven by curiosity and a passion for social innovation—has been rooted in expansive, creative, and strategic thinking, enabling me to see connections others may miss and empowering me to design with depth and foresight. Each role I’ve embraced, from social impact to education and health-tech, has strengthened my ability to design impactful and integrated solutions for a better present and future.

A grayscale icon of a human eye on a dark background.
FREELANCE — 2023 to present

Head of Learning Experience Design & Impact Evaluation

Dialogue logo — health technology company where Diana Baranga-Mazhar worked as a customer experience manager.

DIALOGUE HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES — 2017 to 2018

CX Design

& Retention Lead

Crafted the user experience for a large-scale learning platform, enhancing usability for thousands of supervisors in the manufacturing sector. As principal facilitator, led design thinking workshops that empowered enterprise clients to conceptualize new product offerings. Conducted in-depth user research and synthesized insights into actionable design roadmaps for IBM’s digital transformation projects.

IBM logo — employer featured in Diana Baranga-Mazhar’s design and strategy work.

IBM — 2016 to 2017

Digital Strategy

& Interactive

Experience Designer

Led user experience strategies for mobile engagement solutions, advising 70+ higher education clients on enhancing student interaction outside the classroom. Designed on-campus launch strategies, translating user feedback into product requirements and contributing to a 15% increase in user satisfaction for a mobile platform serving over 52K students.

Ready Education logo — edtech startup where Diana Baranga-Mazhar contributed to student engagement and learning design.

READY EDUCATION — 2014 to 2016

Customer Experience

Manager