Our story. Our team.
XPLOR was founded with a clear point of view: people deserve better work experiences, and people-centered design can be the force of good.
In 2019, Lisa Morris set out to help organizations create better employee experiences. She is inspired by her love for design and frustration over three decades of lived experiences in corporations, where she witnessed decisions based primarily on business drivers and outcomes. Where people were an afterthought. Where empathy may have been talked about but not practiced. Where bureaucracy, efficiency, productivity and the bottom-line were favored over humanity. Where poorly planned and executed organizational change happened frequently. Where processes, procedures, etc., were built around technology capabilities, with people required to fill the part that technology could not while navigating disconnected silos and unnecessary complexity.
Today, we have the privilege of partnering with leading companies committed to putting people at the center of everything they do. We team with leaders separating their business drivers from those of people, knowing that when they put the needs of people first and forge deeper relationships with them, powerful business results ensue. Unlike other studios, agencies or firms, we are devoted to employee experience and design.
We've spent decades working on the 'inside' of organizations. We have figured out how to harness human-centered design approaches, strategy, and systems thinking along with other disciplines including communication, brand, and behavior change to co-create better experiences for and with all people in the world of work. From candidates to employees to alumni - and yes, even gig workers.
We are humble collaborators, rebel thinkers, meaningful makers, and curious explorers. We are XPLOR.
We believe in the power of design.
Our passion for design and desire to make a positive impact drive us. We create practical solutions that address the needs of others and are constantly inspired by the endless possibilities to improve working lives. Our mission is to inspire organizations to make a better world by design through design, and we're committed to making it happen.
Hello!
Meet Lisa Morris, the founder of XPLOR. As the leader of our team, Lisa sets the direction for our work and is renowned for her inveterate problem-solving skills and equal measures of right-brain and left-brain thinking. With over two decades of experience as an applied organizational anthropologist, strategist, and transformation expert turned designer, Lisa's days and dreams are all about designing experiences that make the world a vastly better place to work. Before starting XPLOR, Lisa served as a Senior Director at Sparks Grove, where she led the Global Employer Brand and Employee Experience Practice and co-led the Service Design Practice. During her tenure, she helped some of the world's most prominent brands, including Coca-Cola, Red Hat, and Johnson & Johnson, tackle complex employee engagement challenges. Prior to Sparks Grove, Lisa spent nearly 20 years at Accenture, where she worked with a diverse set of global clients, including Accenture itself. Her educational background includes an undergraduate degree in Mass Communications and a graduate degree in Organizational Behavior and Communication from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Additionally, Lisa holds advanced certificates in Employer Brand Strategy, Graphic Design, Human-Centered Design, and Service Design, and is a certified Human-Centered Design Instructor and Facilitator. At XPLOR, Lisa leads a networked team of human-centered researchers, strategists, and experience designers with expertise in in organizational and business transformation, employer brand strategy, design research, service design, and graphic design. As needed, we call upon other designers with expertise in disciplines such as industrial design, interaction design, UI, UX, and information architecture to support our clients. Together, we are a curious and humble team of rebel thinkers, meaningful makers, and devout practitioners of design craft, always eager to learn. We believe that every organization creates experiences for people, but all too often, these experiences are random or unplanned. At XPLOR, we are united in our commitment to unleashing the power of design to make an indelible impact on the quality of working lives.
