It has been an honor and privilege to have mentored, collaborated with and directly managed Ariba over the course of my 5 year tenure with the Ad Council. Ariba brings a unique combined set of talents and leadership skills that created a most trusting working relationship through our years together at Ad Council. When tasked with leading transformation of our donated media model at the Ad Council, I turned to Ariba, then leading business design and innovation to co-create and help reimagine the many possibilities of such an ambitious exploration. Her curiosity, her insights, her strategic way of thinking and her ability to start with a blank canvas to create possibility led to an amazing experience within my team and the organization. This initial very successful collaborative experience set the tone for our subsequent business partnership. Ariba charged with bringing new and innovative ways of solving business challenges was not always an easy task for a highly successful 75 year old organization, but her calm resolve, her ability to approach opportunities without ego and her sheer determination helped to pave new paths of opportunity for consideration across the organization up through the C-Suite level. Her role expanded as she moved into the Media Team; where I tasked her with leading our Web 3.0 exploration to help identity new partnership opportunities, while also leading the Ad Council learning agenda about this next generation of media engagement. She once again started with a blank canvas and took the lead to learn, network and engage with thought leaders in the industry in order to design a roadmap that laid the foundation to a short term and long term strategy for company wide adoption of next generation media. Ariba is a self starter, an entrepreneur, a visionary, a learner, a leader, a rising star who brings kindness, empathy and heart to her everyday work life. I have a great amount of respect for her and highly recommend her for a position that allows her to soar!

Kathleen Kayse, Senior Marketing Leader
Former Chief Media Officer, The Ad Council

I highly recommend her for any role related to UX design leadership, product management, organizational development/change management or any leadership capacity in innovation or emerging technology. Ariba is passionate about solving problems and pain points by co-creating with people who are the most impacted. She is expert at applying design thinking and lean startup practices as well as best practices in UX to a variety of projects and challenges. Ariba is a self starter and takes initiative on work related projects as well as her own growth and learning. She has immersed herself in all things Web3, taught herself Python, sought out and received scholarships for conferences and speaking boot camps leading to her becoming an internationally recognized thought leader, speaker and now podcaster! Ariba is an empathetic listener and is able to distill insights and present to her colleagues and senior leadership with confidence. She was often asked by senior team leaders to consult on larger projects including our strategic plan and DEI commitments. Ariba's impact at the Ad Council has been transformative in exposing the organization to new ways of thinking and working. She is a strategic systems thinker and would be an asset to any organization tackling big challenges.

Anastasia Goodstein
Former SVP of Digital Product at the Ad Council

Ariba is a phenomenal leader with grounded confidence who collaborates well with users, junior staff, middle management, and c-suite executives. She democratizes design thinking and innovative ways of working and thus shaped many Ad Council projects for the better. For the Mental Health initiative, she led co-creation sessions with a vendor and was able to generate crucial insights for the product strategy. Anyone would be lucky to have her on their staff and team!

Rebecca Mir

There is no better collaborator than Ariba. I had the good fortune of working alongside Ariba for over 6 years at the Ad Council on several innovation projects. During this time, I was continually impressed by Ariba’s ability to drive change and innovation at the organization with her strategic thinking and leadership skills. Most importantly, Ariba leads with empathy. When I’ve worked on teams led by Ariba, every brainstorm and co-creation session was an invitation to explore, safely step outside of one’s comfort zone and think differently. I’ve seen Ariba bring out people’s greatest strengths and best work, myself included. Working with Ariba has helped me grow as a strategic and innovative thinker. I would jump at the opportunity to work with her again in the future!

Shirley Young

Ariba is dedicated, detail oriented and hard working. She was helpful to our team as we prepared for product launch. She demonstrated good product manager instincts. She never hesitated to ask questions and validate assumptions. Ariba will be a strong asset to any startup team.

Aileen Gemma

Ariba has a perfect combination of personality, attentiveness and a great willingness to learn from peers at all levels. While at Lean Startup Machine, Ariba managed to provide excellent training while at the same time always looking to improve processes and asking us for feedback on how things could be better. Most importantly, through her determination and willingness to always better herself she has demonstrated that she will be a force to be reckoned with in the near future. I will gladly work with her again.

Alex Montas Hernández

It’s been a joy to collaborate with Ariba on the Ad Council Spark team and to learn from her vast and growing knowledge of emerging tech and innovation. Her innovation practice goes beyond simply subject matter expertise – she lives and breathes innovation in the way she creates space for all voices with transparency and empathy. I most appreciate how for her, innovation seems to be an everyday practice that honors the wisdom of voices who are traditionally overlooked in the tech and innovation space – women, people of color, queer folks, and others. She’s a true leader in her ability to bring so many people together under the same mission for making our world better with innovation.

Rachelle Reeder
VP, Strategy & Evaluation at the Ad Council

I have had the great pleasure of working with Ariba at Women in Innovation for the last year. As a chapter lead for our entirely volunteer-run organization, she recruited a whole new team during the pandemic and built a solid chapter culture that was grounded in active listening and equity for each member of the team. She went above and beyond to help us develop programming, that consistently added value to the broader community while ensuring that we were all able to balance our volunteer roles with our full-time jobs and lives. I was inspired to see how she pushed the organization forward, mentored various members of the team, played the role of facilitator for initiatives that spanned across our global network, and enabled people to upskill in ways that would help them progress in their careers. On top of having brilliant management skills, she has also helped create structure and operationalized a bulk of our processes so multiple remote teams can work together seamlessly. She is a great example of a leader who prioritizes results while empowering the team to do their best work and any organization would be lucky to have her on their team!

Neha Bhatia
Independent Strategy Director - Brand, Experience & Innovation

Ariba is a rare talent, positioned to help create change and innovation in all aspects of the workplace. I cherish working with her on everything from digital prototype projects, design sprints, diversity, equity, and inclusion committees and much more. Her strategic leadership in our organization has touched nearly every corner of our work, from the way we do business, to the products and experiences we create. The way she implements change to innovate and scale growth is uncanny and invaluable, especially when thinking about organizational change. She is constantly listening and learning from others inside and outside the organization in an effort to help educate and coach others to grow their design and innovation skills. The way she is able to lead a group, is facilitation at its finest. Her creation of training and projects has single handedly brought our organization into a new way of thinking and creating, prioritizing who we’re in service to. Senior leaders across the organization rely on her to lead important and sensitive meetings due to her ability to read a room, design & facilitate working sessions, and set the tone for openness and exploration. She leads by example, shows patience, gratitude, humility, and truly believes she can make a lasting difference. I have been privileged in getting to know Ariba both professionally and personally and truly believe she will continue to make waves moving forward.

Greg Kelly
Senior Director, Strategy & Digital Products at Ad Council