diametervision CREATIVE + DESIGN LEADERSHIP

"Only Lara could see the potential of bringing ESPN, one of the leaders in world-wide communication, in contact with the ATLAS Experiment at CERN, a world-wide collaboration of particle physicists. But, now we aim to dramatically improve our ability to bring the thrill of scientific discovery to a global audience more effectively than ever."

"The continuous iteration and feedback from ESPN's creative team enabled our projects to be grounded in a real market, retain its ability to be fresh and innovative, yet tested to withstand the rigors of the web and broadcast media."

"All our thanks go to our consistently amazing RISD students and to ESPN for their time and generosity. ESPN did not just act as the client, but as co-faculty. It was a true collaborative effort and the end result exceeded all of our expectations."

"The studio (ESPN+RISD) was one of my first trial runs in applying the problem solving I had built up the last few years; and a month after, when I had the time and distance with which to process it, it was an eye-opener."

"This summer, I had the privilege of interning with Lara. I really admire her ability to foresee emerging trends years in advance. Lara excels in encouraging her employees to think critically and push beyond superficial ideas. Her guidance was invaluable in my professional development."

"Lara, Thank you so much for taking time to meet with Andrew and his classmates. They are busy at work on his film... You encouraged and inspired his crew and they are very grateful. So am I!"

"I just wanted to thank you for organizing the amazing Best of Disney event in LA! I learned so much about the latest technology innovation in disney and expanded my idea of what is possible."

"Lara Sasaran did an excellent job organizing an incredibly informative, collaborative and inspiring event. I feel fortunate getting the chance to participate. I hope this becomes a trend, and we see more of Best of disney and similar showcasing events."

"I came away from Best of disney incredibly inspired and was amazed at the vast innovation and creativity we have across the teams!! This was a great event for sharing and I hope it becomes an annual event!!"

"The key reason for the success of the Emerging Technology Group monthly roundtables was Lara. She exhibited both deep knowledge and broad connections to subjects and experts in those fields. Moreover, she is just inspiring to work with. On my short list of people I would love working with again, Lara ranks at the top."

"Thank you for the honor to present at Best of disney. It was a great day! And thank you so much for all your patience and help in prepping my presentation with the Getty. Congratulations on such a successful inaugural event!"

"When disney had a new creative directive, they were caught in a challenging place of trying to build an infrastructure to support their creative vision. Lara was instrumental in finding and vetting new cutting edge technologies, such as ours at Adventr, to deliver the exact specifications needed, far faster and more cost effectively, making it a win-win situation for all those involved."

"Lara is like the best of both worlds. She understands the due diligence of business operations but also inspires creativity and innovation. As someone who works with her on the Operations side, she is an awesome partner in getting it done. Whatever it is, she makes it work. In Lara, we trust."

"Lara is strategic, thoughtful, and innovative in her approach in not only interactive design, but also the creative sphere of marketing and the business of an organization from end-to-end. Her methodic curiosity for the work, and passion for change that drives innovation-- is the type of person everyone needs to have on their team!"

"Lara is an exceptional leader. She is organized, efficient, collaborative, and creative. She is a great strategist and fosters an environment that encourages growth and innovation. I enjoy working with her. From an ops perspective she is on top of every project her team works on and ensures that deliverables are met. On a personal note, she is a joy and makes work fun! She is a force!"

"Just so you know, it has been such a pleasure working for you and being on your team!"

"THANK YOU SO MUCH for getting everything through today. There's already such a major improvement in our turnaround and that is a direct result of you bringing some order. Thank you so much for thinking it all through and being collaborative in the process."

"Lara, you were great and I feel you had great ideas, a clear strategic perspective and appreciated how you kept all of us accountable."

"Thank you for everything, Lara. I really feel like we work well together and have pushed these projects to a new level. I have learned a lot from you."

"It's been really wonderful working with you and Nick. I genuinely mean this - you two have been the most proactive team I have ever worked with to get a major overhaul on an FYC site and completed it in record time. You've really brought STARZ up a notch and surpassed the industry standard with the FYC site."

"This summer, I had the privilege of interning with Lara. I really admire her ability to foresee emerging trends years in advance. Lara excels in encouraging her employees to think critically and push beyond superficial ideas. Her guidance was invaluable in my professional development."

"What more can I say but thank you. You have believed in CollegeGameday.com from the beginning and championed it like it was on the level of an NFL-type site. I can't say enough what it has meant to me to have you along with me to build and grow this site. In many ways we wouldn't be here without you. Thank you!"

"Thanks very much for all your hard work on Fan Feast. It was great to see Mike and Kenny out of their normal 'studio home' and at a diner in Plainville. Whether it was the content Mike and Kenny were delivering, the graphics (all the way down to the check promoting ESPN.com's involvement) or the cameo appearances from Lou and Buck, each day brought something fun, unique, and memorable. Thanks for producing such a great SportsCenter series."

"Lara pushes me as a designer to think outside the box with every project that I am assigned. She has a drive for coming up with new, innovative ways to serve sports fans and collaborating various ideas from our team to do so. I am constantly challenged under her guidance to find the best solutions and execute them well. Her confidence is a quality that communicates her leadership, which is much needed in the case of decision making and influences others to do the same."

"Lara is a very creative designer and an organized, clear leader. She asks the right questions and is able to accurately prioritize the many projects her groups are assigned. She's always respectful, diligent, and on-deadline. She motivates her group to do things that haven't been done and to try to tell stories in new ways. She encourages and educates editors about different ways to relay information."

"Lara's key strength is immediately recognizing the key issues and challenges around a specific project. She quickly picks up the vision/expectations of the client and just as quickly reacts with solutions, new ideas, and creative thinking. Lara is also keenly aware of the product she works on and how people interact with it. She always keeps this in mind when developing new features."

"Lara not only challenged me as a designer, she helped me find my creative voice and taught me how to translate my inner vision into a design language that I could share. Her award-winning accomplishments and successes on both small- and large-scale creative initiatives at ESPN speak volumes to her talent as an art director. She is a confident leader, who adeptly communicates her vision through bold, innovative, creative solutions that create an emotional connection."

"I worked directly with Lara on the launch of a newly branded digital experience within ESPN.com specifically designed for high school students. She was an innovative leader who easily took charge and inspired a talented young team. Lara made extra effort to establish a creative direction so that it would stand out and appeal to a younger audience. In her day-to-day work, I always admired how she pushed the envelope of status quo and challenged her peers and senior leadership to avoid complacency."

"Lara's attention to detail, understanding of current technologies, and development of new systems make her a force to be reckoned with. She inspires her teams to create quality through her leadership."

"Amazing. I didn't know you could do that with video!"

"The Beijing package is great. I've never seen anything like that before on our site. Well done."

"We need more people that think like you."

"During a shift in demand for ESPN’s creative team in the midst of a redesign, I was brought in as a resource from Primacy to work under Lara. Her in-depth direction of ESPN’s infrastructure made the creative and on-boarding processes highly efficient. Lara's creative and technical vision not only created a smooth and successful environment, but even led one of my projects to an unexpected Emmy Win!"

"Only Lara could see the potential of bringing ESPN, one of the leaders in world-wide communication, in contact with the ATLAS Experiment at CERN, a world-wide collaboration of particle physicists. But, now we aim to dramatically improve our ability to bring the thrill of scientific discovery to a global audience more effectively than ever."

"The continuous iteration and feedback from ESPN's creative team enabled our projects to be grounded in a real market, retain its ability to be fresh and innovative, yet tested to withstand the rigors of the web and broadcast media."

"All our thanks go to our consistently amazing RISD students and to ESPN for their time and generosity. ESPN did not just act as the client, but as co-faculty. It was a true collaborative effort and the end result exceeded all of our expectations."

"The studio (ESPN+RISD) was one of my first trial runs in applying the problem solving I had built up the last few years; and a month after, when I had the time and distance with which to process it, it was an eye-opener."

"Like the slogan "When E F Hutton Talks, People Listen". When Lara Talks, People Listen. Lara earns trust in any room and has done that by her ability to listen to all the voices in a room and then distill and articulate main points in such a way that the path forward is evident. She is a natural leader."

"Lara is awesome at breaking through the noise of conflicting POVs about a CX to offer a simple, data-driven answer. I've valued Lara's feedback in meetings discussing particularly thorny CX issues, particularly in the privacy space. Her feedback rarely needs to be solicited; rather, she offers it freely and ensures she is at the table for CX discussions."

"Ideation, thinking big, creative customer-centric design, a unique perspective. *Thinking outside the box.* Lara is great at imagining what the world could - and should - be, and thinking through design problems both large and small."

"Lara's super power is her ability to earn trust of others. Her doors are always open for casual or work conversations. She is open to feedback and looking at ways to improve the quality of her teams deliverables. She is clear in her communication about ownership/team boundaries which brings clarity and helps projects move ahead faster."

"Lara's super power is to hire and develop the best. Everyone has weakness, but she always can find their strength, and encourage them. These encourages help enlarge their advantages and make them do better! Thanks for her help, I built self-confidence gradually."

"Lara always puts real customers first. Period. She demonstrates backbone and is not afraid to speak up if she feels processes, decisions or solutions are sub-optimal. When seeking a solution, she is effectively curious and dives deep enough to learn and deliver results with speed."

"When approaching a problem with her partners, Lara is inquisitive, asking hard questions while maintaining a feeling that a true partnership is being developed. With Lara, I know that she is always trying to achieve the best outcome for the customer."

"Lara runs a kick-ass design org that is well respected by engineering teams. They raise the bar on the quality of our features and customers are better off for it!"

"Lara is a great team builder and leader. You can tell that she is intentional in each of her actions especially when hiring. She thinks long term, has a true vision for her product and team. Futurist."

"Lara is a visionary and knows how to mobilize and motivate the right people in the right way to see that vision through."

"First, a HUGE *THANK YOU* to everyone for your hard work to bring this Sprint 1 delivery to a close. The Microsoft Japan account team’s response to our demo and video was “SUPER AWESOME”. No, really, those exact words. We should be really proud of this!"

"ThumbsUp. Great job helping them dig in to the emotional impact and look and feel of the app. It was obvious they thought it was an important goal for their company but hadn't thought how to apply that to the app specifically."

"THANK YOU all for the work that you put into the RFI response, as many of you have heard time and time again from the account team their feedback just kept getting better and better on the quality that was put into the response. Again Awesome job team!!! I really hope this leads to follow-on work with this team, what a great project it would be to work on."

"Lara and Team, I wanted to thank you all for the coordination and time you spent providing the presentation and demo to the CSM team and customers. I know you all have an extremely busy schedule and I appreciate the time you put into the event. I'm hopeful that this has inspired members of our team to reach out to you in the future for opportunities to partner in future engagements with our customer base."

"Thank you for coming all the way to Niigata! Oyanagi members were very satisfied with the project so far."

"Your involvement for the exhibit at AUVSI included development of the Visual Product Model which highlighted all elements within the exhibit. You were a key player in the exhibit design and development of 3D images for graphic panels and screen savers, and editing of movies. Your talent contributed to the end result, a class-act exhibit. This major event required intense planning and execution that could not have been accomplished without the dedication of a creative, innovative, and talented team."