Executive Director, Agncy

Augusta is a designer and strategist seeking to use design to redistribute power in the systems of our country. Her practice brings together established design methods and problem-solving approaches with the philosophies and mindsets of community organizing.

Augusta founded Agncy Design to apply and adapt human-centered design practices to the social sector. The firm’s first experiment was a focus on education in the City of Boston, identifying partners and opportunities to tackle structural inequities. Through this effort, it has worked with organizations such as Boston Public Schools, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Chiefs for Change, as well as a host of community organizations including City Hall, philanthropists and local foundations, private industry, and non-profits.

Now expanding, Agncy has created a community-centered approach to design and works areas such as community development (e.g. with neighborhood-based collectives), healthcare (e.g. with New England’s primary safety net hospital) and criminal justice (e.g. with a coalition that includes police department, school, and service provider), as well as continued work in education.

Augusta brings a long history in corporate design and innovation, lending a cross-sector perspective to her work, with past clients that have included companies in categories such as financial services (BBVA, Sun Life Financial), healthcare (United Healthcare, CVS, Quest Diagnostics), consumer packaged goods (PepsiCo, Abbott Nutrition), and non-profit/NGOs (The World Bank, USAID).

She has spoken to audiences ranging from the Mayo Clinic to the Council of Great City Schools and her writing on design and innovation has appeared in publications such as Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Touchpoint.