About
We’re a tiny company with big ideas about how to change work—for good. Since 2020, Active Voice has been helping people in design and tech understand who they are and how they lead—so they can speak up with confidence, build team resilience, and navigate challenges with ease.
Active Voice is led by Sara Wachter-Boettcher—a certified coach, strategist, facilitator, author, and speaker dedicated to changing design and tech for good.
Sara launched Active Voice in 2020 after working for nearly a decade as a UX and content consultant—so she could focus her work on building a more inclusive, equitable version of leadership.
Sara published her first book in 2012: Content Everywhere, a guide to creating flexible, mobile-friendly content systems. In 2016, she published Design for Real Life (with Eric Meyer), focused on designing interfaces that are more inclusive and empathetic. Her third book, Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech, published in 2017, extends that work, outlining where the design and tech industry has gone wrong, and how all of us—from engineers to the public—can push back.
Sara holds the Associate Certified Coach designation from the International Coaching Federation and the Trauma-Informed Certified Coach designation from Coach Training World. She has also received additional training in team and systems coaching from CRR Global and in facilitation from Technology of Participation.
Sara is a frequent speaker and has been featured at hundreds of events, including SXSW, Drupalcon, Mind the Product, UX Week, Confab, and Lead Dev. She’s based in Philadelphia and works with clients around the world. Learn more about her at sarawb.com.
Our team
Jen Dionisio
Director of coaching programs
Jen Dionisio is a certified transformation coach, content strategy consultant, and educator. Her experience spans the tech, higher ed, and nonprofit industries. Her years of management experience include scaling up a content strategy practice from 5 people to 25 people, supporting the career growth of her reports and mentees, managing managers, and helping new managers establish a leadership style authentic to their values and core strengths. She's also a former professor at Drexel University and the University of the Arts. As a coach and facilitator at Active Voice, Jen helps people launch new chapters of their lives with intention and purpose.
Emily Duncan
Operations manager & producer
Emily keeps all our programs and products running smoothly. She produces the Per My Last Email podcast and all our video content, manages projects, coordinates events, and generally keeps things in order.
Outside of Active Voice, Emily is also a celebrated contemporary flutist and producer whose work combines music, technology, theater, and art. She holds bachelor’s degrees in music and English from The University of Iowa, and a master of music degree from The Juilliard School. She is currently based in New York City.
Andrea Nwoke
Collaborator
Andrea Nwoke is the founder of Full Voice Coaching & Consulting, which helps leaders increase their self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and leadership skills. A classical singer who has worked with C-suite executives, she’s a pro at helping people find their voice and bring true presence to any room.
We partner with Andrea to offer programs that help teams bring bold ideas and inclusive communication practices to work.
Books by Sara
Technically Wrong
See how tech industry bias and blind spots get baked into digital products—and harm us all. A Wired Top Tech Book and Fast Company Best Business & Leadership Book.
(W.W. Norton, 2017)
Design for Real Life
Learn to identify stress cases and design with compassion, so you can create interfaces that support more of your users, more of the time (coauthored with Eric Meyer).
(A Book Apart, 2016)
Content Everywhere
Design content that's flexible and structured for reuse—so it can go more places, more easily. Perfect for bringing systems thinking into your content strategy toolkit.
(Rosenfeld Media, 2012)
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Experience
We’ve led trainings, workshops, and keynotes for dozens of companies—including these fine folks.
