Core Team

Peter Corbett, CEO

Peter is the founder and CEO of iStrategyLabs. He’s widely known for his creative marketing approaches coupled with a deep technical background, and focus on civic innovation through community building. His full bio can be found here.

Joseph Corbett, COO

Joe is the COO of iStrategyLabs, and his focus is on creating perfect digital/physical execution for clients and the lab itself. Being charged with keeping the lab operating efficiently 24/7 demands that Joe knows how to solve problems in 100 different ways, but he prides himself on finding the elegant solution that most satisfies each job. He has been deeply immersed in the web since the age of 10, and started his first tech business at age 16. Joe’s true passion is studying human behavior and technology’s influence on it.

Chris Verwymeren, CTO

As the CTO of iStrategyLabs Chris focuses on organizing binary chaos. He bends technology in obscene ways to breathe digital life into the crazy ideas coming out of the lab.

A recent transplant to the District, Chris came to iStrategyLabs from the frigid plains of central Canada, where he developed innovative desktop, mobile and web apps including Bodega, the original Mac app store.

DJ Saul, VP of New Ventures

DJ is the VP of New Ventures at iStrategyLabs, focusing on new venture creation (Grandstand… launching soon), while also developing the various community focused programs that iStrategyLabs champions, (see the StartupXLR8R series or DCWEEK).  DJ is a co-organizer for the DC Tech Meetup, the founder of Colonial Entrepreneurs, and is a DC Ambassador for Sandbox, a group of 600+ inspirational leaders from 45 countries, all under the age of 30.

DJ studied International Affairs at GW, and now serves on the GW Alumni Association Communications Committee and The Luther Rice Society, as well as mentors several GW startups.  DJ won the Great Urban Race in DC and was a finalist in the New Orleans championships — he also plays in the DC Bocce League, where his team (city champs & sponsored by Ben’s Chili Bowl) has donated thousands of dollars to local non-profits.  His true talent… witty email image attachments.

Zach Goodwin, Creative Director

Zach is the Creative Director of iStrategyLabs. Zach is a two-time ADDY winner, an obsessive-compulsive designer, and the sometime wearer of skinny jeans. From animations to websites to full-scale national campaigns, Zach combines the smart, the memorable, and the pretty. You might even say he brings the pretty. He also very occasionally employs his unnaturally deep voice to do voice overs for client projects. He greatly enjoys doing this but will sometime pretend like he doesn’t.

Audrey Matthias, Creative Strategist

Audrey is an exemplar of the new breed of internet professional- part marketing guru, part social media aficionado, part digital culture personality, her work demands an ongoing reinvention of self-expression in response to the ever-changing environment of contemporary communications technologies. As a Creative Strategist, she  brings a deep understanding of the social web and related tools, trends, and methodologies to clients and collaborators (having worked closely with the likes of American Eagle, Disney, and Pinkberry).

She accredits most of her daily mannerisms and occasional slip of an accent to being raised in the south <insert witty comment about her love of kentucky bourbon here>. When not at the office she can usually be found planning epic parties/dinners/ outfits/craft projects, pretending not to be a hipster while shopping at urban outfitters or riding her single speed blue bike up to columbia heights. The geek in her occasionally makes an appearance when she admits her deep love of infographics and witty hashtags that define socially awkward interactions #justsayin

Katie Lancos, Creative Strategist

With a combined background in graphic design, web development, and event management, Katie brings a lot to the table in her core role as a creative strategist. Her holistic approach to clients, collaborators, and projects is fueled by her unique skill set, a passion for all things digital and social, and a compulsion to consume the latest web trends.

Katie graduated from Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design and is currently studying part-time at Georgetown University getting her Masters in Public Relations with an emphasis in digital communications.

Jon Long, Creative Technologist

Jon is a creative technologist who specializes in walking the line between visual design, information architecture, and user interface development. Having designed and coded for sites serving anywhere from 20 visitors to 20 million, he’s most excited by the potential of great design to help people navigate tough problems in simple ways.

Jon loves bringing great experiences to life through standards-based web development, and helps others to do the same as a part-time instructor at Boston University’s Center for Digital Imaging Arts. When he’s not perched behind the keyboard, Jon enjoys all manner of comics, live music, and exploring DC on two wheels.

Bonnie Shaw, Director of Strategy

Bonnie is an expert at making meaningful connection between people, place, technology and play to catalyze massively collaborative civic innovations for tangible real world impact. As the Director of Social Innovation at iStrategyLabs, Bonnie brings a delightfully playful perspective with a background in city design and participatory planning, game and adventure design and online organizing and community building. She offers 10 years of international experience in urban design, civic engagement strategy, experience design and campaign implementation for local grounded and global online engagement projects.

Bonnie is a serial social innovator. She is the founder of global photographic treasure hunt and community engagement game Snap-Shot-City.com – a ground breaking integrated technology storytelling event played by 1000’s of people in 100’s cities around the world. She is the Dean of the DC chapter of The Awesome Foundation – a global organization of micro funded philanthropy that catalyzes community innovation by providing $1000 micro-grants every month for awesome projects, and a co-creator of the 24 Hour City Project – a community sourced experiment in hacking the city and temporary urbanism.

Zach Saale, Creative Strategist

Zach is a Creative Strategist who concentrates on supporting the tech infrastructure of client campaigns, social experiences, and products developed by iStrategyLabs. With a background in web development, graphic design and hardware, he’s able to execute complex implementations that require knowing exactly what tech to deploy in any situation. Zach joins iStrategyLabs from his most recent employer – Apple – where he learned that perfection is an achievable and noble goal. When not at the lab you can find Zach blogging about beer, adding to his movie collection, or playing video games.

Mike O’Brien, Social Experience Designer

Mike’s just a regular Joe Lunchpail who’s somewhat good at making things look…somewhat good. In years past, he’s drawn cartoons, screen-printed gig posters, designed band t-shirts, animated music videos and coded some websites.

He earned a BA in Journalism from University of Maryland and fancies himself a bit of a wordsmith. He’s not. Fortunately, he majored in Graphic Design too and has managed to put those skills towards some form of gainful employment. Truth be told, iStrategyLabs made a huge mistake hiring him. Suckers.

Erica Goodwin, Creative Strategist

Erica is an eager strategist with a love for collaboration, innovation, social media, and research. Understanding clients down to their core and creating a cohesive finished product between all mediums is a passion that Erica has followed throughout her life. She graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Industrial Design and furthered her skills by working in graphic design and web development for the last 3 years.

Erica has been living in Arizona for the last 6 years and is brand new to D.C., as is evidenced by the large pile of parking tickets on her windshield. When not at the office, Erica can be found giggling compulsively, traipsing down the U-Street corridor, or getting lost en route to her house. If you see a perplexed blonde girl on the streets of Dupont, point her towards iStrategyLabs.

Lauren Kerwell, Social Experience Designer

If Lauren could be writing this bio in the depths of the darkest shadows of her room, all alone, with tears of angst and remorse streaming down her face, while the mournful songs of My Chemical Romance echo through her earbuds, she would. However, iStrategyLabs fell in love with her and her emo tendencies (and mad design skills), and decided to give her a job.

Those tears of angst and remorse would probably come from shelling out 40 grand a year to attend Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, with only a piece of paper called a diploma to show for it. When she’s not writing the soul-wrenching lyrics or dark and disturbing poetry that come from her black, broken heart, Lauren enjoys True Blood, video games, and harassing her creative director about his scarves and skinny jeans.

Megan Zlock, Creative Technologist

Megan loves to focus on creating projects that aren’t just used, but experienced. She asks the tough questions all through the production process to make sure her projects, from front-to-back, are geared in the right direction and serving the end user to the fullest. Aside from her awesome coding skillz, she also brings her wide experience with all things artistically nerdy to the table, including but not limited to: graphic design, 3D modeling, animation, illustration, comics, bathroom tiling and resin jewelry making (from which she lost far too many brain cells). When not in the office, Megan loves to learn and keeps adding to her list of skills, since it’s just not long enough already.

Sarah Sugarman, Social Experience Designer

Sara loves exploring all creative fields from graphic design to photography and believes it’s important to dive into different areas of expertise to achieve an overall successful design. She’s slightly obsessed with all things typography, with Gotham being her all time favorite typeface. After taking three years of calligraphy, she has also developed a knack for hand-lettering and forming letters via the old fashioned way of nib and ink.

She earned a BFA in Graphic Design from the School of Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology with the Japanese language on the side as a minor.

When she’s not enjoying her job as a Social Experience Designer, she can often be found jamming to Lady Gaga, watching Food Network, playing video-games or getting lost in the never-ending depths of tumblr.