Mike Wittenstein

Chief Experience Officer of Storyminers

In the emerging field of experience design, Mike is a marketing-branding-operations-strategy visionary whose job is to see what you don't see. His gift and his passion is to learn your brand's story and then deliver customer experiences that are beyond expectations. By looking, listening, and onsite analysis, Mike can help you pinpoint precisely what it takes to deliver off-the-charts customer experience all the time.

Mike engages with your brand, your employees, and your customers. Listening to the real voices of your customers, Mike mines their stories for what they care about most. He translates these wishes, needs and expectations into deliverable promises that can vault your brand ahead of the competition. Every point of contact with the customer, and every dimension of the user experience comes under scrutiny.

A former e-visionary at IBM, Mike helped commercialize revolutionary ideas such as recommendation engines, personalization, and systems thinking which have now become industry standards. Mike's work is focused primarily on service companies. He has a long track record at designing service innovations that help brands become more appealing-and more profitable. Mike has influenced key decisions at international brands such as Air Canada, Carlson/Wagonlit, Delta Air Lines, IBM, iPay Technologies, Kinko's, McDonald's, MCI, and Wingate Inns and at mid-size firms such as Alternative Apparel, Childress Klein Properties, Conner Partners, decisionpoint, Diversakore, the Galleria Office Park, iPay Technologies, Macquarium, Party City, SOHO HERO, and VeenendaalCave.

Mike also founded GALILEO, one of the nation's first interactive agencies, which handled clients such as Apple, AT&T, CarMax, Goodwill Games, Holiday Inns, Southern Company, Turner, and Val-Pak, in addition to numerous start-ups.

Mike has a 21st century worldview, and he's personally experienced best marketing practices around the globe. He earned an MBA in international management from Thunderbird and a BA in foreign languages and cultures from the University of Florida. Mike represented the United States in exchange programs to the former Soviet Union and to Brazil. Immersion in other culture (he speaks 4 languages) has heightened Mike's sensitivity to cultural nuances and the power of non-verbal communication. In the words of one of his mentors, "Mike's intuitive skills are off the chart." These unique "intangibles," combined with Mike's formidable marketing, change management, and experience design talents work together to bring his clients fresh insights and bold new solutions.