Human Experience Designer
Make your vision something people feel.
For 25 years, Chicago Innovation has filled the room: thousands of founders, executives, and civic leaders celebrating what this city builds. The next chapter is about what happens between them. I design intimate dinner experiences, woven into your sponsorship and program strategy, that turn your network into measurable partners, funders, and champions.
For organizations whose mission moves through relationships
When relationships drive your impact, how you bring people together matters. I design curated experiences, grounded in strategy and built to be measured, that deepen trust with the people who move your mission forward.
- Foundations and nonprofits deepening relationships with donors, sponsors and partners
- Innovation ecosystems and civic conveners bringing corporate, startup, nonprofit, and public leaders together
- Purpose-led brands and B Corps building community around their values
- Universities and cultural institutions engaging alumni, patrons and partners in new ways
Six Challenges You May Be Facing
You fill the room, but the room doesn’t hold together.
Your events draw hundreds of leaders, and the energy is real. But by Monday, most of those connections are business cards in a drawer, and the relationships that could unlock partnerships never form.
Your network goes quiet between events.
Every year adds hundreds of nominees, winners and alumni to your community. That network is one of your greatest assets, and most of the year it sits untapped.
The board wants intimate dinners, but not another event to staff.
The board said “intimate dinners,” but without strategy they become nice evenings that cost staff time and produce nothing measurable. We change that.
Your sponsors buy a logo, not a relationship.
You know your corporate partners would renew and invest more if they felt closer to the mission. A step-and-repeat and a table at the gala don’t create that feeling.
“Unifying force” is hard to prove.
You bring corporations, startups, universities and civic leaders together. But when the board asks what those connections produced, attendance numbers are all you can point to.
“Innovation is for everyone” has to show up at the table.
Your mission depends on underrepresented founders getting real access, not just a ticket to the event but a seat next to the people who can change their trajectory.
From a full room to a connected community
What changes when intimate experiences are designed as strategy, not as another event.
BeforeStakeholders attend an event but don't form meaningful relationships.
AfterThe right people build relationships that continue beyond the room.
BeforeSponsors see their logo at the gala and evaluate renewal on visibility alone.
AfterSponsors feel inside the mission, and renew and invest because of the relationships they've built.
BeforeNominees, winners and alumni reconnect once a year, at the next big event.
AfterYour network stays active year-round, with each gathering building on the last.
BeforeCorporate, startup and civic leaders share a ballroom but rarely a real conversation.
AfterCurated tables spark partnerships, pilots and investments across sectors.
BeforeUnderrepresented founders get a ticket to the event.
AfterThey get a seat next to the people who can change their trajectory.
BeforeThe board sees attendance numbers.
AfterThe board sees partnerships formed, dollars committed and collaborations launched.
The impact you want to make deserves relationships with real depth.
I join your team as the lead designer to curate intimate experiences. I’m there from the moment we connect your gatherings to your business model through to the impact they create. You get senior strategic leadership and a clear blueprint for bringing curated experiences to life that deliver direct, measurable impact for your sponsors, partners, and the community you serve.
From Strategy to Impact
- Experience strategy. How intimate experiences fit into your business model, which relationships matter most to your mission, and where they create the most critical impact.
- Storyline and guest journey. The narrative guests move through across the whole series, so each gathering reveals more of who you are.
- Curated experience design. Every element of each dinner: guest curation, arrival, seating, conversation design, sensory details and the close.
- Impact and measurement. Clear goals from the start, and a way to track the partnerships, funding and collaborations the experiences create.
- Team partnership. Playbooks, briefings and my presence at flagship gatherings, so your team executes with confidence.
"How you make someone feel is the infrastructure of everything you build."
— Dr. Payal Beri
From Vision to Lasting Impact
Every engagement moves through four stages, each one building on the last, so the experiences we create stay rooted in your strategy and grow your impact over time.
Listen
Vision & what must shiftWe begin with your vision and the impact you're working toward, then uncover what needs to shift, in perception and in relationships, to move that impact forward.
Design
Strategy in three layersStrategy is built in three layers: how the experience is woven into your business model for the greatest impact, the storyline guests will live, and the curated experiences and overarching impact they create together.
Equip
Your blueprintYou receive a complete playbook and strategic design, so execution runs seamlessly and your focus stays on keeping the experience true to your mission.
Measure
Impact over timeWe define success from the start and track what the relationships create over time: partnerships, funding, collaborations and champions for your organization.
What we learn shapes the next chapter of your story.
Built for Depth
What Happens When the Right People Truly Meet
Measurable impact from curated experiences, and the relationships that keep growing long after the evening ends.
people reached through leadership and culture experiences I designed
changemakers convened across sectors
countries where my programs have brought people together
- A nonprofit funded
- Changemakers hired
- A changemaker conference sponsored
- New cross-organization collaborations
The level of detail and intentionality behind how you made each piece so meaningful was so special. I go to a lot of high-end experiences. This was different.High-net-worth estate attorney, Washington, DC
“I met people who have become avid supporters of my nonprofit, and opened doors I didn't know I needed open. ”Founder & Executive Director, education nonprofit
“The level of vulnerability among strangers that felt so safe and so easy. That doesn't happen by accident.”Executive coach to women leaders in STEM
“I had no idea how much I needed to be in that room. And how much it would transform my perspective.”Public policy advocate, reentry & incarceration
“I have to have you bring this down to Memphis.”Obama Fellow & nonprofit founder
“When it comes to fundraising events, we wanted to do something completely different. Dr. Payal’s team put together the immersive experience as a unique way to bring the story of our work that happens in a prison to the outside world. Dr. Payal and her team are gifted storytellers who took the time to truly understand the work and our mission, which made the experience even more powerful.”Andrew Murphy, Executive Director, WIEA
Dr. Payal Beri
As a third culture kid raised across 18 cities, countries and continents, I learned early that belonging is something you create. For 20 years, as a psychologist, I’ve studied human connection and how cultures around the world gather, and I bring that global perspective into every experience I design. I’m the founder of The Empathy Storyteller’s Salon and the creator of The Relationship Economy, a framework built on a simple belief: experiences worth building begin with how you make someone feel.
My work lives where psychology, culture and experience meet:
- —Organizational psychology. Leadership, values and culture programs that have reached 50,000+ people at organizations including NASA, Google, Betterment, Flatiron Health and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- —Experiential design. Immersive donor, partner and community experiences that bring the missions of foundations and nonprofits to life
- —Convening. The Empathy Storyteller’s Salon, bringing 100+ changemakers together across Chicago, DC and New York into rooms where partnerships are born
- —Thought leadership. Keynotes for audiences of up to 800, and the podcast Reframing Perspectives, exploring how relationships shape leadership, culture and lasting impact
This is the heart of The Relationship Economy, the framework behind everything I build: community as infrastructure, connection as strategy, and belonging as the engine of lasting change. Whether I’m shaping a leadership program for thousands or an intimate dinner for twenty, the question is the same: how do we want people to feel, and what will that feeling make possible?
As a former clinical therapist, I understand what helps people open up. As a designer, I create the conditions for it to happen. That combination is what turns a gathering into a turning point.
Not just advising on it.
Reframing Perspectives
I sit down with changemakers shaping culture, business, and social impact, exploring how relationships transform the way we lead, work, and live.
Listen inThe Empathy Storyteller's Salon
Underground social experiences for changemakers who know relationships are the real infrastructure for change. Hosted in Chicago, DC, and NYC.
Be invitedReal Impact is made through Relationships
Partner with me and let's grow the impact your organization has on its community.
Begin the Conversation