About Us.
MADO is a boutique Consumer Insights and Strategy studio based in Portland, Oregon. We offer close partnership relationships with our founders and hands-on collaboration with our vibrant team of global researchers, designers and strategists.
Jaclyn Suzuki
Founder, Director of Insights + Strategy
Jaclyn is hard to define, which is kind of her super power. She’s able to talk to executives and creatives in their own languages, while giving each one a dose of the curiosity and courage necessary to dream big.
She once asked product designers to imagine what a vacuum would look like if it could fold up like origami. Another time with VP’s, she created a 50-year roadmap for the future of toothpaste. That’s right. Fifty years of toothpaste!
HOW SHE GOT HERE:
After working as an engineer for a global tech firm and researching new materials for an artisanal glassmaker, Jaclyn found a home at Ziba Design, where she led consumer insights, trends and innovation strategy programs for major brands — and spent a few years in the Tokyo office to boot. She was already incorporating future-forward approaches as a creative director when she and Kat decided to form MADO.
IN HER OWN WORDS:
“My dad’s an engineer and my mom’s an artist, so I bounce back and forth between the right brain and left brain a lot. I try to bridge creative vision for the future — let’s be bold and go farther — with a practical, business mindset. That guides how I design research programs to have impact.”
Kat McMillan
Founder, Director of Foresight + Creative
Kat combines the skills of a visionary designer with the curiosity of a philosopher.
She sweats every detail of an ideation workshop or insights report. It has to be thought-provoking and engaging, “because who wants the future to be flat?”
HOW SHE GOT HERE:
Kat spent nearly a decade overseas at design consultancies in Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain before focusing on product design, strategy and trend research for Portland-based organizations. While serving as design lead at Cinco Design, she met Jaclyn and the two realized they were both informally bringing future-based consumer insights, creativity and strategy to their client teams. Soon after, MADO was born.
IN HER OWN WORDS:
“My perspective is that it's not about the blender; it’s about the way that people want to nourish themselves. It's not about the chair; it’s something in the chair’s tactile quality that adds beauty and comfort to their life. That kind of perspective is what I bring to any program. What’s the human story with your brand and products, and why is it possibly shifting?”
Working Together
MADO was built for direct collaboration with our founders Jaclyn & Kat.