Achieve influence & stakeholder alignment for PMs and UXers

Hosted by Christine Perfetti, Diana DeMarco Brown, Melissa Appel, and Jen McGinn

374 students

What you'll learn

Why identifying the power players can be key to your success

By understanding your organization's structure and how decisions are made, you will see how to drive the most impact.

What causes teams to lack alignment and what to do about it

Learn how to get teams in the same room, have the challenging discussions, and collaborate on solutions.

How to effectively cultivate connections and allies

Use curiosity to understand the perspectives of your peers and executives, improving buy-in through collaboration.

Why this topic matters

In this interactive conversation, learn how several Product and UX leaders approach stakeholder relationships to drive organizational transformations. You will see the importance of understanding how the organization operates, identifying power players, and building trust and respect with those who matter the most.

You'll learn from

Christine Perfetti

CX and UX Advisor [Ex-GoFundMe, Carbonite, Acquia]

Christine Perfetti is Founding Principal of Perfetti Media, a product strategy and research consulting firm. Christine built the research programs at GoFundMe, Carbonite, Acquia, and TuneIn, and has led product visioning workshops for Harvard Business School, WeSpire, HubSpot, Curriculum Associates, and Penn Medicine, among others. Before becoming a 2x founder, Christine Perfetti was the Head of User Experience at Carbonite and Acquia, two highly successful Scaleups in Boston, Massachusetts.

Diana DeMarco Brown

Design Leader [Ex-New Relic, Oracle, Author of Agile User Experience Design]

Diana DeMarco Brown is an experienced designer and leader with experience in both building out teams at startups and guiding teams to deliver exceptional experiences at an enterprise scale. Her management strategy has a heavy focus on leveraging process and design principles to support product designers in producing their best work in service of the business and the customer experience.

Melissa Appel

Product Management Coach, Author [Ex-Wayfair]

Melissa Appel is co-author of the newly released book, "Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders." Melissa has 20 years of Product Management experience at companies in various industries, stages, and sizes. She helps product leaders create aligned strategies by getting the right people in the room and asking the right questions. Melissa's executive coaching focuses on process improvement, team development, and stakeholder management.

Jen McGinn

Experience Design (XD) Executive, [VP of UX, Flexera]

Jen McGinn is an Experience Design (XD) leader in the areas of cloud services, enterprise applications, security, and developer tools. She has a proven track record of creating highly-functional teams that have the room to innovate while consistently delivering in a fast-paced development environment. Jen routinely presents at local, regional, and international UX conferences on topics such as UX strategy, journey mapping, Agile user research, and ethics in user research and design.

© 2025 Maven Learning, Inc.