Bio

• Justin Petro founded Thinktiv with Paul Burke to rapidly develop and capitalize on innovative business ideas by providing strategic product design and brand services. He has a passion for launching new products to new markets and is building Thinktiv’s design and strategy practice with people and processes dedicated to aggressive, entrepreneurial pursuits.

• Prior to founding Thinktiv, Justin worked as the Director of User Experience for Design Edge —an internationally renowned product design firm. While there, Justin assembled an award-winning team of User Experience specialists. His team tackled problems ranging from the brand strategy, mobile devices, the eldercare market, software design, visual product strategy and positioning, and new-market ethnographic research. Prior to Design Edge, Justin worked in e-commerce for Trilogy Software —where he helped found Leadership.com. In his 15 year career, he has worked for a number of large recognized brands, including: Merrill Lynch, SICE, Siemens/Cerberus, SC Johnson, Microsoft, ADT, Darpa, Dell, AMD, Trilogy, LG, and Tricon.

• Justin holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in Industrial Design with a concentration in Visual Interaction Design and Cultural Studies. He sits on the board of the Austin Center for Design, has lectured at the Savannah School of Art and Design and at the University of Texas. He is a published author in both AIGA and Core77 as well as a contributing author to “Thoughts on Interaction Design” by Jon Kolko.