PROFILE

A Major in Action

Lindsay Garfinkel ’19 wants to make your day better

by Katie Williard

Lindsay Garfinkel ’19 is obsessed with experiences. But her focus isn’t only on her own personal experiences — it’s also on the experiences she can create for others.

As a senior business consultant in the innovation and experience design group at EY US, Garfinkel is a strategist focused on improving the experience a customer or employee has with a brand. She brings creativity and attention to each project, focusing on trends, technologies and business markets. Through it all, she keeps her sights firmly set on all things human-centered — a passion she developed studying markets, innovation & design (MIDE) at Bucknell.

Photo: Matthew Garfinkel

Lindsay Garfinkel ’19 credits her MIDE major and the holistic Bucknell experience for helping her find professional success.

As a MIDE major, Garfinkel learned valuable lessons about the consumer experience and how to predict, understand and meet customer needs. The MIDE program focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of marketing, examining how creativity, analytics and technical processes combine to shape our culture. Along the way, students cultivate a habit of envisioning how their work can improve the world.

“Being a MIDE major set me up for success in my career,” says Garfinkel. “It allowed me to learn how to take ideas all the way through the development process while keeping positive interactions and experiences at the center.”

But Garfinkel says that classes outside her major were just as influential. “I don’t feel like I just went to the Freeman College of Management — I went to Bucknell as a whole. I think that’s the evidence of a really powerful business program within a strong liberal arts education. I was able to take courses and have experiences outside my major that directly influenced who I am and what I’m doing today.”

From studying criminology and digital privacy to leading Bucknell’s chapter of Colleges Against Cancer, Garfinkel used her Bucknell pursuits to gain a better understanding of how she could apply her expertise to improve the human experience.

Now, Garfinkel uses all these insights to help her clients think strategically about the future of their business operations, consumer perception and interactions, and designing for optimized experiences. She first gains an understanding of their current state, then leads future state design, encouraging the most aspirational “blue-sky thinking.” She then builds them a strategic roadmap to implement experience-focused initiatives.

She carries her care for experiences into her personal life as well, constantly focusing on the things she can do to “make somebody else’s day better.”

“No matter what I’m doing, I just want to help make people happy,” she says. “I’m hopefully putting a smile on someone’s face.”

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