Leadership Team
The Akendi leadership team has the business experience, scientific expertise and design creative to deliver what will ensure organizational success and meet the goals of customers & users.
Tedde van Gelderen
Founder & CEO
Tedde infuses Akendi, its services and methodology with his drive to make customer and user experiences go beyond a singular product or service. Taking a holistic approach to the experience users have with an organisation over time, he then steers companies with enabling technologies & content to build intentional experiences.
Tedde advocates that Experience Thinking™ should become deeply rooted in an organisations' product design process & their culture, and is ultimately reflected in the products and services they deliver.
A graduate of Radboud University, the Netherlands in Cognitive Ergonomics, Tedde has more than 20 years in experience research, usability testing and user experience design in both public and private sectors. Prior to founding Akendi, Tedde was a founding partner of Maskery & Associates. He has worked for companies including KPMG Management Consulting, Philips Design in the Netherlands and Nortel Networks in Canada.
Cindy Beggs, MLS
Partner, Director of Experience Research
Cindy brings to Akendi a passion for understanding user needs and having those needs reflected in product and service excellence. With over 25 years of experience, underpinned by an honours degree in Psychology and Masters in Library Science, Cindy brings both a theoretical and practical understanding to the design and execution of user experience strategy, information architecture, research and analysis.
Along with her expertise in library and information science, Cindy has worked with large and small companies to help them organize around issues of web governance and strategy. She has co
nducted and taught usability testing, information architecture and the methods of user centered design as well as guided organizations to articulate their business and user goals. Cindy specializes in usability research, content strategy and bringing an experience thinking approach to corporate intranets.
Cindy has shared her expertise on user-centred design and the criticality of getting web governance in order and treating content like the valuable asset it is with many organizations from fortune 500’s to non-profits.
Shaun Illingworth, Ph.D.
Partner, Managing Director
Ensuring research is relevant and actionable is what drives Shaun day-to-day. With over 15 years of experience in both enterprise and startup technology companies, Shaun is an experienced business strategist, creative thinker and market research executive with a rare focus on user-centered design and its resulting business value.
With extensive North American and European market research and market development experience, Shaun has successfully built several marketing and business relationships from the ground up – borne from a focus on customer values and the user experience.
Shaun began his career in Boston as a product and 
market research consultant; he holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Northeastern University and is a professional moderator and workshop facilitator.
Prior to joining Akendi, Shaun held a variety of senior management positions in strategic marketing, market research and business development, with companies like Nortel, March Networks, and Inuk Networks.
Dominira Saul, MSc.
Partner, Director of User Experience
Dominira believes that behind every well-designed product or service there is a thorough understanding of the actual users and their needs.
Having presented many influential research and design outcomes to clients at all levels of the private and public sector Dominira is very adept at putting his belief into practice. Dom remains focused on ensuring clear transfer of design recommendations and
most importantly, rationale to our clients. Dom is committed to working closely with clients to ensure their success.
Dominira is a fluently bilingual communicator who has lectured at the university level, and delivered many training courses.
Dom has an MSc. in User Interface Design from London Guildhall University, a BA in Psychology from Carleton University and over 10 years of usability research and interaction design experience in the UK and Canada.
Let's Talk!
Please email Shaun Illingworth, Managing Director, at contact@akendi.com or 1.866.585.1660 x0 for questions and more information about how we help optimize your user experience design, digital product design, physical product design, or wayfinding & signage.
