★ Recommendations
PROFESSIONAL:
» COURTNEY BOLTON, CREATIVE SERVICES.
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Creative.
“I was fortunate to hire Courtney as a design consultant for a project with my company. As Director of Operations for Earl Technology Group, I watched her excel both as a designer and as a business professional. She provided insightful contributions to a conceptually difficult project. Courtney is a sharp, focused and highly talented individual who understands the core fundamentals of design. She exudes confidence and charm, commanding any room she enters. She is the designer every executive wants on his or her team.”
● Toby Schachman, Database Architect, hired Courtney as a Interaction Designer,“We hired Courtney for a very ambitious web startup. We intended to support a user experience that was both novel but relied on established tropes (experiencing long form movies). Her insights were invaluable, matching the complex goals we had in mind, spanning the business plan and customer delight. I’d hire her again.”
Top qualities: Personable, High Integrity, Creative.
“What I most admire about Courtney is her curiosity. She is constantly finding and sharing new facets of the world, especially new ways to think about design. We worked briefly together on a project but have maintained a strong personal friendship beyond that. Further, her support, recommendations, and introductions when our team moved from Cambridge to New York City were invaluable.”
Top qualities: Expert, On Time, Creative.
“At the time we were started selling on-line complex configured sports wheelchairs for the disabled. Courtney designed the product builder on the website, making it easy, intuitive and fun.”
“Courtney is a skilled professional who I had the opportunity to work with at Businessweek. It is rare to find somebody so excited and eager to incorporate analytical insights with creativity to develop products. Leveraging natural talent with experience, Courtney is an asset to any company.”
“I worked with Courtney on the BusinessWeek Digital team. I was in charge of the software QA team; I interfaced with Courtney often to clarify and sometimes brainstorm BusinessWeek and BusinessExchange design requirements in the front end. I enjoyed working with Courtney because she has a passion for her art, persists through difficult or challenging times, and asks the hard questions. Courtney is clearly bright, conceptual, open, pursues excellence, and has a great sense of humor. She is able to generate ideas without being swept away in the group-think of ‘what everyone else is doing,’ and she will be a great asset to any team that needs sparkle.”
“Courtney Bolton is that unique individual who is both technically strong in the area of user design and tuned-in to the mindset of today’s digital consumer. As members of the digital team at McGraw-Hill’s BusinessWeek, we worked together on developing a targeted social media platform, Business Exchange, which involved every aspect of social media interaction: content aggregation and management; user generated content; recommendation systems; user profiles and registration. As Director of User Participation, responsible for community curation and moderation; approval of user generated content; customer feedback and social media marketing, I was greatly impressed (and grateful) for Courtney’s constant desire to improve the platform in ways designed to promote user acceptance and remove barriers to participation.
Courtney is passionate; intelligent; dedicated, talented and cosmopolitan – a winning combination. Her expertise in user design and understanding of the online audience makes Courtney unique, and someone I both recommend and would be lucky to work with again.”
“Courtney is a talented UX Designer, organized, detail oriented and she is quick in understanding complex tasks and come up with creative solutions. She followed enthusiastically the requirements in the projects I managed at Lehman Brothers and complemented the design solutions with grace and intelligence. Courtney is a passionate, friendly and accommodating designer with an ability to navigate the challenges of a high paced environment. She has great skills in both technical and creative fields which make her an accomplished experienced UX Designer/ Art Director.”
» METHOD, NYC
“I’ve known Courtney for quite a few years going back to a conference at Carnegie Mellon. I worked with her at Method where I am one of the founders. She worked on projects for MFGlobal and TED. Both projects were successful, with TED being particularly so.
She’s thoughtful, smart and a good person to have around. In addition her broad-based interests in design, user experience and photography make her a well-rounded employee.”
● Michael Keany, CSO, GM London & NY, Method, managed Courtney indirectly at Method,
“I worked with Courtney from 2007—2008 at Method where I was the GM of the New York Office and Chief Strategy Officer. Method was, and is, one of the premier design firms in the US.
Courtney joined our growing team, and was able to thrive in the very fast-paced experience design space. Courtney brings strategic insight and a consultative approach and would be a valuable addition to any team.”
● Joe Hidekazu Minami, Senior Designer, Method, worked with Courtney at Method,
Top qualities: Collaborative, Enthusiastic, Deadicated.
“Courtney worked with me on a number of projects at Method. Her extensive knowledge and experiences in strategy and finance were valuable resources while I worked on designing corporate marketing websites for MF Global. Courtney is a reliable and enjoyable person to work with.”
Top qualities: Expert, On Time, Creative.
“Courtney is great to work with, tempering big picture thinking with acute attention to details. She has a passionate enthusiasm for design and and is very skillful at communicating them.”
» TD AMERITRADE
“Courtney made great contributions to the redesign of the TD Ameritrade Institutional Advisor platform, as well as the overall re-branding and platform integration for retail investors. She is a polymath, deeply engaged with how business strategy, technology and design all intersect to push experience forward.”
“Courtney played a major design role in re-branding TD Ameritrade. It was a pleasure to work with and I would be delighted to work with her again.”
“Courtney was a UX designer while we were both at Ameritrade. She was terrific to work with and her designs were top notch. We set a record for the most projects implemented during the year and her efforts helped make it possible. It was a very stressful high volume time, but Courtney always delivered high quality designs well within any deadlines. My staff and I held Courtney in high regard and were always happy to see her assigned to our projects. She is dedicated and a very good team player. Feel free to contact me for any more info.”
● Audie Panganiban, Sr. Client-Side Developer, TD Ameritrade, worked with Courtney at TD Ameritrade,
“When we worked together at TD Ameritrade, Courtney Bolton impressed me with her ability to quickly grasp all the important issues on a project, provide multiple solid and insightful resolutions and proactively follow-up with me or my team to make sure we had the assets we needed from her. She was a shining resource on our team. She was incredibly hard-working and extremely collaborative. I know many times we worked through solutions together to make sure her design and my implementation worked seamlessly. I appreciated that she made my job easier.”
● Bill Caemmerer, Sr. Interaction Designer, TD Ameritrade, worked directly with Courtney at TD Ameritrade,
“Courtney’s thoughtful and committed to understanding what users really need; she understands the business side and has the talent to deliver visually effective designs. I worked with Courtney during a major redesign effort that earned top usability marks in the press, and she was a joy to work with. Highly recommended. I look forward to working with Courtney again.”
“Courtney is creative, enthusiastic, curious, decisive and energetic. She was a pleasure to work with and I would be delighted to work with her again!”
“Incredibly well rounded in all things digital, Courtney possesses a rare combination of sharp designs skills, deep analytic abilities and abundant creativity, built on solid business acumen, wrapped with passion and enthusiasm. This is someone you want on your team.”
“As group manager of client communications at TD Ameritrade, I had the unique pleasure of partnering with Courtney (as a representative of the user experience group) on a wide variety of critical projects. From the day I first met her, Courtney stood out as a passionate, conscientious, extremely hard working and intellectually curious person—she consistently delivered great work, and she proved to be a fierce advocate for doing the right thing both internally and for clients.
Above all else, I always found Courtney’s passion for her work very impressive—she put everything she had into whatever she was working on with tireless enthusiasm—and performed her job with supreme focus, attention to detail, and a big smile. She was a pleasure to work with, and she’ll be an asset wherever she decides to hang her hat.”
“I worked with Courtney for a number of years on the User Experience team. As a designer in a financial environment, her unusual business acumen served her exceptionally well.
Courtney is completely committed – more than most people I know – to constantly bettering herself, and she holds herself to a high standard. As a result, her solutions are often thoughtful and high quality. She’s also a pleasure to work with, and there’s always something to learn from her. I would very much welcome the chance to work with Courtney again.”
“Working with Courtney was a great experience, and speaking for myself, she set the bar on designer/developer collaborations. She is highly knowledgeable in her field and communicates her ideas, direction, and goals very clearly. Her execution of said ideas, direction, and goals left nothing to be desired.”
“Courtney was a great partner in building the Amerivest website user experience. I was the COO of Amerivest at the time when we collaborated together and Courtney, as our user experience designer, was always willing to work within our technology constraints and had the ability to recommend a unique solution with tight resources.
Courtney was an active participant in our cross functional team meetings and was always able to to offer insight into the needs of the user that allowed my team to stay grounded. I considered her not just a great user experience designer and product strategist, but also a great business person. This helped Amerivest get to where it is today and her assistance proved invaluable in that process. I would endorse Courtney in a variety of roles in any organization desiring an associate with a can-do attitude.”
Courtney’s talent to express and communicate using the interactive medium is light years ahead of her experience. She can ‘make it pretty,’ just as well as she can ‘make it behave.’
» R/GA
“Courtney was a joy to work with. She is professional, talented and extremely creative. I continue to try to figure out ways to work with her again!”
“I highly recommend Courtney as a strategic thinker and user experience designer. The the range and depth of her portfolio is a testament to her ability to learn, understand and create steller user experiences for various types of clients.
While an Art Director at R/GA her insight and input played a vital role in shaping the outcome of the projects we collaborated on. Courtney is ambitious, gifted and tenacious. She stands out of the crowd by continuously challenging herself and others.”
● Jonathan Lupo, Interaction Designer, R/GA, worked directly with Courtney at R/GA,
“I was introduced to Courtney when I joined the Interaction Design team at R/GA, and have always viewed her as a Creative influence. Courtney has an intuitive Design sensibility as well as a deep understanding of the technologies and underlying platforms that will support her User Experience vision.
She generates original content on social media platforms that illustrate her suaveness with the interactive medium as well as her understanding of what types of content will drive engagement. I wish that she was working in my company, and look forward to another opportunity to collaborate with her.”
Top qualities: Expert, On Time, Creative.
“Courtney and I worked closely together early on in her career. She interned with my team at R/GA and returned to work with us after she completed her college education. She was a genuine pleasure to work with. Smart, funny and an eager collaborator with the whole team. She would be a welcome addition to any team.”
» APPLE COMPUTER
“You know those people you meet in life that make you think to yourself, ‘I’m working with someone who is actually changing the world?’That’s Courtney in a nutshell. She’s a motivated individual who’s courage and eagerness to learn & develop herself serve to remind plebs such as myself that even in the adult monochrome world full of shades of grey, the opportunity to take charge of one’s life and extrude creativity lies dormant in all of us. It’s only the unique individuals like Courtney who are brave enough to harness that ability and brighten the world.”
● Lori Clithero, Account Executive, Apple, managed Courtney at Apple Computer,
Top qualities: Expert, On Time, Creative.
“Courtney worked for me while she was a student at Washington University in St. Louis. Her top qualities were her energy, hard work, creativity and attention to detail. She was part of the team that helped grow Apple revenue at Wash U over 25% year over year.”
» WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, OLIN BUSINESS SCHOOL
Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, Creative.
“I had the pleasure of working with Courtney during her 4 years of undergrad work at Washington University as her supervisor for the IS dept. As an Information Service student consultant, she stood out from the rest of my team early on.
One of the few who knew how to handle computing requests from the students as well as the creative ideas of web design that helped lay the foundation of our IS student website.
Confident, efficient, instinctive, detailed and creative is just a few of the words that I can say about Courtney. Very few were able to follow in her footsteps when she graduated. We need more people like her.”
“I am very pleased to write a recommendation for Courtney Bolton. My professional experience with Courtney is interesting because I was in charge of the Lab Consultants for the Business School computer lab where Courtney worked as a student employee.
She was a pleasure to work with, worked hard and was very adept at helping her student customers have a great experience with accomplishing their computing goal: getting their learning and homework accomplished through the utility of the computer lab. Courtney used her computer knowledge and skill and her excellent interpersonal skills to help her fellow students along.
The interesting part is she stayed in touch with me over the last 10 years, of which I was very impressed with. I never missed a Happy Birthday wish or various updates on her life and adventurous career. I’ve always been impressed with and pleased to know Courtney and highly recommend her for any position that would employ her knowledge and creative skills technically and artistically.”
PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS:
Question:
What Five (5) adjectives best describe Courtney?
• Wildly intelligent, subversively creative, deeply engaged, productively fastidious, & brilliantly funny. —Maya Stein, IDEO.
• Energetic, curious, tasteful, & fabulously brilliant. —Joseph Turian, Ph.D.
• Passionate, creative, driven, unconventional, powerful. —Chris Avrich, MIT.
• Individual, artistic, personable, prompt, adventurous. You are unique for your perspective, creativity, & [how] you come up with solutions. —Robin Laws.
• Creative. Focused. Informed. Driven. Enigmatic. —Chris Koerner, Apple Computer.
• Inquisitive. Bright. Creative. Perceptive, very well-rounded. A renaissance woman of sorts. —Mike Leigh, entrepreneur.
• Reliable. Organized. Focused on the project. —Alessio Casalini, sound engineer.
• Inventive, supportive, organized, thorough, energetic. —Ben Lehrer, Harvard GSB.
• Intelligent, detailed, organized person- but creative. You always end up 50/50 on those right brain-left brain tests. —Sean Spada, Juilliard.
• Immersive, talented, self-motivated, brilliant, inquisitive. Immersive is the best adjective I can come up with for someone who finds lighting for her apartment by experimenting with 40 different types of bulbs. —Dean Christakos, Research Scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Ph.D., Program in Media Arts and Sciences (M.I.T. Media Laboratory), 2006.
• Likes networks, detail-oriented, careful, good communication, reads people well. —Baris Yuksel, Google.
• Intelligent, driven to succeed. High attention to detail, quality-minded, hard-working. Focused. Talented, knows her craft. Expressive. —Roger Bolton, ValuePlace Investments.
• Kind, beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful, artistic, creative. Hard-working, original, fun-loving, & sweet. —Ashley Pyle, travelzoo.
• Brilliant. You’re very bright, Courtney. —Cynthia Haque, entrepreneur.
• Detail-oriented, self-starter, adept. No one can see as far into a project as you with consistent good results. —Glenn Baughman, musician.
• Open-minded, with a good heart, dedicated to Quality, loyal to the cause. Optimistic about the future. —Donald Guarnieri, entrepreneur.
• Innovative, fresh, inspired, driven. —William Nicholl, certified wilderness guide.
• Curious, persistent, entrepreneurial, artistic, enjoys making connections. You are able to understand how to use her human intelligence as the muscle it is. —Ron Rensink, visual data scientist & research professor, UBC. Ph.D, Computer Science (MIT).
• Hard-working, creative, high standards, with determination. —Rannfrid Thelle, professor. Ph.D, Program in Old Testament Studies (University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology).
• Intense. Optimistic, always moving forward. You think outside the lines, about the bigger picture. —Dave Miller, NYU, IDSA.
• Smart. Fresh-thinking. Organized, with a Creative leadership attitude. —Giorgia Orlandi, journalist, BBC.
