Dr. Jessica Wattman is a veteran at creating strategies for environments in rapid flux. Her work has been predominantly in the public and nonprofit sectors, where she has deployed Jobs to be Done and other innovation methodologies to create a wide range of trail-blazing programs in conflict and other unstable environments. She is co-author of the book Jobs to be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation (2016).
Her background includes time in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, and other hotspots. She has worked for organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, Save the Children, Oxfam, the US Agency for International Development, and Mercy Corps. Jessica has extensive experience in conducting primary research and using those findings to create new approaches to facilitate communities’ adoption of new ideas. Her media coverage includes a feature story on the CBS Evening News, and she was a recently a speaker at the MIT Media Lab. In addition to her public and nonprofit work, Jessica has deployed these innovation methodologies for private sector clients, working with New Markets since 2010 for clients in industries including online education and Internet services.
Jessica is a magna cum laude graduate of Columbia University's Barnard College. She also has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is fluent in Spanish and French, and she has lived on four continents.