Game Changer Profile

Diana Stepner, VP of Innovation Partnerships & Developer Relations at Pearson Read insights

Diana Stepner is the VP of Innovation Partnerships & Developer Relations at Pearson – a company which has been innovating since the Industrial Revolution. She helps business units accelerate digital innovation, drives global partnerships with startups, builds relationships with developer communities- including incubators and start ups- and runs the Pearson Catalyst for Education accelerator program. Diana’s passion is to bring innovative user experiences, products, and partnerships to life by applying technologies that are not always ready for primetime. 

She has focused her career on helping companies turn emerging trends into product reality, realize the value of open innovation, and collaborate with disruptors (both big and small). She is known for thriving in chaos, connecting with fringe developments, strong public speaking, inspirational team leadership, and an ability to translate between business and tech. 

Innovation Background: Diana built the Future Technologies team and “Champions” community of 150 digital thought leaders to actively explore trends three to five years before mainstream adoption. She established the Catalyst accelerator and created a pipeline of start-ups that could provide potential solutions to business challenges. She led maker education efforts, including hardware and maker space partnerships.

Team Leadership Background: Diana has led global teams consisting of developers, designers, and product managers for start-ups as well as corporations. She has guided technology organizations on transitioning to mobile. And she has managed emerging media projects at a leading digital agency for clients in sectors ranging from beverages to hospitality to technology. 

Product Management Background: Diana launched new consumer and eCommerce sites for websites with operations across 36 countries. She established first user experience guidelines for leading cloud-based sales / CRM platform. She applied design thinking and lean start-up practices to introduce rapid prototype development to education leaders.

Marketing Background: Diana advised global Fortune 100 customers on incorporating proper user experience practices, including user scenarios (stories) and personas. She leveraged insight to define features, develop prototypes, conduct usability tests, and provide actionable design recommendations.

Previously, Diana worked in Emerging Media at Razorfish and UX at Salesforce.com. In addition, she led Product Management in Western Europe for Monster Worldwide. She has a MIMS from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Boston University.