Maria Stashenko is a design thinker, whose professional background includes a deep knowledge of philosophy, cultural studies, and economics. She is the co-founder and CEO of Design Thinking Center in Moscow since July 2018, and an academic member of Design Management Institute (USA) since 2005. Maria is also a graduate of St. Petersburg State University, HS Anhalt, and Staffordshire University. Her key areas of expertise include development of new educational formats in business with a creative component, development of new products and services, and the formation of creative spaces.

Maria has consulting experience in projects of developing new solutions and services for companies like SAP, Novartis, BNP Pariba, VTB 24, Mail.Ru, Pegas Touristik, Transaero, IBM, QIWI, Svyaznoy, and others. She founded the Russian "Community of Design Thinkers" in 2009, and also serves as the course director of "Design Thinking" program in British Higher School of Design. Additionally, Maria has worked as a head lecturer in design management at the British Higher School of Art and Design, a design expert at the Ministry for the Economic Development of the Russian Federation, a lecturer in design management at St-Petersburg Art-Industrial Academy, and as the owner of organica design consultancy. She was also the marketing director at Foodline and brand manager at Valio.

Keywords: Design thinking, service design, business modelling, research, creative education, product development, creative spaces, consultancy, philosophy, cultural studies, economics.