Eric Schaffer, PhD, CUA, CXA, CPE

Eric’s path-breaking contributions to UX include:

• Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice — 2nd edition (Addison-Wesley, December 2013) with Apala Lahiri. The book provides a practical roadmap for companies to follow in order to make UX systematic and routine
• The HFI Framework^TM, an ISO-certifiable process for user-centered design, and which forms the backbone of HFI’s pragmatic design methodology
• UX Enterprise^TM and UX Marketplace^TM, advanced enterprise level tools that let your organization build great designs from your UX data cloud and enable process-driven UX
• An array of industry-recognized UX certification programs — for practitioners, organizations and products

Eric has directed projects for over 200 Fortune 500 clients, providing UX design consulting and training. He continues to lead projects in digital strategy, innovation, design, and persuasion engineering and mentor staff to deliver world-class UX solutions to our clients.

Jay More, MBA

Jay is enthusiastic about helping HFI employees reach their full potential and overcome "blind spots" in their growth path. He works with all aspects of the company—delivery, HR, finance, operations, marketing and sales.

Apala Lahiri, MA, MS, CUA, CXA

Apala leads HFI’s research in the future of UX and has been published in the World Future Society Journal. Her innovative and pioneering techniques have benefitted global giants to develop exciting new concepts and products across domains. She specializes in creating UX strategy for organizations who are looking to provide breakthrough UX to their customers and other stakeholders. She has developed a vast array of user research techniques that help understand UX in diverse cultures and economies.

Apala’s talk The Three Laws of UX at TEDx Golflinks in Bangalore (2013) is an inspiring perspective of the "bottom of the pyramid" socio-economic class and the user experience that must be improved for an entire spectrum of the population, regardless of their socio-economic status.

She has co-authored the new book Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice along with Dr Eric Schaffer, and previously co-edited the Taylor and Francis published book Innovative Solutions: What Designers Need to Know for Today’s Emerging Markets.

She is an internationally acclaimed speaker (USA, Canada, Europe, South Africa, India, Malaysia, China) for her keynote talks on contextual innovation, ecosystem research, internationalization, and designing for emerging markets. Her talk at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva (2017) explored interesting possibilities in which AI could help the disadvantaged, displaced and dispossessed.

Apala was responsible for setting up and growing HFI’s consulting operations across Asia (Mumbai, Bangalore, Pondicherry, Shanghai, and Singapore) and Africa (Johannesburg). She led the operations as Vice-President, Asia, before transitioning to be Global Chief of Technical Staff and, then, Chief Design & Delivery Officer.

Mohit Bhatia, BSc, MLS, BGL

At HFI, Mohit provides end-to-end HR consulting and offers strategic business advisory services to the company’s top management.

His areas of expertise include Talent Acquisition and Management, Rightsizing and Restructuring, Mergers & Acquisitions, Employee Relations, Employee Productivity and Performance Enhancement, Total Rewards, Transformation & Culture Change, and more. He has worked along with Private Equity/Venture Capital run firms and has vast understanding of aligning organizational and employee goals thereby providing Strategic HR solutions to achieve strong business results / growth.

Mohit is certified as “Coach” by an International Coach Federation accredited program – empowering him to create a positive change and achieve transformation and results in any organization he is associated with.

Mohit holds a Bachelor in Science, a post-graduation in Personnel Management, and a Bachelor degree in General Law.