Kirah Consult was founded by Anna Kirah. Anna offers 16 years of experience in concept making through front-end research, product and service design and development, design and implementation of educational programmes in concept making and radical innovation, customer service and managing organizational change.
At Kirah Consult, we do not profess to have the answers but we facilitate and empower you to discover and uncover what you need to know to be successful as an individual, member of a team, member of a company and even a member of the community you live in.
How we work:
Typically we are contacted either by a leader or project manager within an organization who describes a challenge and asks for solutions. We do not believe in consultants as experts, in fact, we believe that you know best but that you can lose sight of your own capabilities.
When problems arise it is usually because a company, a group or even an individual is blinded by a number of factors. We help remove these blinders so that you can create solutions collaboratively with the key stakeholders needed to be successful. Our role is to reframe the situation and the questions that arise and help you to discover and uncover the answers that work for you and your organization. We work with you to meet the needs of both your internal customers and those external to the company through a tailormade programme.
Some examples:
Strategy and vision workshops, participatory design workshops, ethnographic journeys that help you see the world from the perspective of the people you want to create for and create with, internal education curriculums, etc.
We connect you intimately to your customer and to expand your thoughts as to who your customer is and who they can be!
Some of Kirah Consult Clients:
Coloplast, International Newspaper Marketing Association, Newspaper Association of America, Microsoft, APC-Schneider, Amberlight, CPH Design, Schibsted International, ESOMAR, Channel 4, World Association of Newspapers, Why Thomas, Eddi,
Anna Kirah, founder
Anna's primary focus is on people-centered innovation and concept making, be it product and/or service development or organizational and/or personal change.
She leads workshops within organizations and companies and tailor-makes an approach that allows you to see yourself and your company from different angles and points of departure.
Kirah sits on several boards (both in the public and private sector), the jury for the Braun 2009 design prize, and she is a popular inspirational speaker on the topics of concept making, innovation, mindset change and change agents within companies, anthropology and participatory design.
Anna recently left her position as dean and faculty member of 180° Academy, an international school for radical innovation. She was responsible for designing, implementing and overseeing the 180° curriculum. The curriculum highlighted Anna's capacity to combine research, design, concept development and commercialization of products, services and organizational change in order to meet the demands of a rapidly growing world.
Prior to joining the Academy, Anna served as the senior design anthropologist for the Microsoft Corporation. At Microsoft, she was responsible for global field research and participatory design both within the Windows division and MSN. In 2004, she won the award for MSN Contributor of the Year. In 2006 she was recognized for her contributions to Microsoft's geopolitical strategy. Anna also worked at Boeing as a research associate doing pre-concept research onboard commercial aircraft.
Anna holds a graduate degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oslo and a graduate degree in Psychology from the University of Washington. She has lived and worked extensively in Europe and Asia and is fluent in English and Norwegian. She also has a working knowledge of French. Kirah has written award-winning newspaper articles in Japan, edited and written books about contemporary Norwegian society and won several research grants, fellowships and scholarships.
Her dream:
To be given the gift of one month to finish her book on the concept making mindset!
