Our Team

If the tech industry can’t create enough opportunities for the people who built it, we need to start building them together.

Jess Lowry, Founder

Jess has spent more than two decades at the intersection of technology, design, and human possibility — helping organizations build better products, teams, and communities, one project at a time.

Her career has taken her from the boardrooms of global companies to the scrappy early days of startups, working alongside firms such as Accenture, McKinsey, and Bennett Midland to facilitate design sprints across healthcare, retail, government, and emerging technologies. At Amdocs Studio and Cision, she led teams through product strategy, design research, and service design. Additionally, Jess has facilitated multiple 5-day innovation sprints with the SOCOM Innovation Foundry, which brings together U.S. and international Special Operations Forces (SOF), industry, academia, government, and futurists to explore how to assist USSOCOM in decomposing future scenarios and missions. The goal of these events is to develop concepts and approaches for the framework, technologies, infrastructure, and capabilities required to effectively conduct SOF operations in fictional mission scenarios.

Her civic tech prototype Key to the Street earned recognition from Fast Company, won an Artist in Residence at the Banff Centre after a pitch at SXSW, and reached the finals of both the SXSW Eco Place by Design Competition and Austin's Social Good Pitch Competition. Her newest initiative, STOA, aims to provide greater transparency and agency on social media platforms.

Jess is also a dedicated teacher and mentor. Through General Assembly, Bloomberg i-teams, and grassroots programs, she has coached hundreds of emerging technologists and entrepreneurs navigating the gap between potential and practice.

Community building has always been part of her work, not an afterthought. While living in Melbourne, she grew Girl Geek Dinners from a small gathering to a community of more than 100. In Austin, she launched SheHacksATX and SheDesignsATX, connecting female founders with designers and developers — helping more than 50 early-stage startups gain their first real traction. Jess was also a mentor on Startup Bus, providing support and coaching to teams that took ideas from zero to one—moving from a raw idea to a functional Minimum Viable Product (MVP) before reaching the destination.

After living through the disorienting experience of layoffs and the prolonged job searches now facing so many people in tech, Jess founded Mindful Collective — bringing the same combination of strategy, empathy, and community to the people who build the future.

Connect with Jess on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeslowry/

Would you like to join the founding team?

Mindful Collective Studio is just getting started, and we are looking for a small group of people who want to help build the foundation of the community.

If you believe in the mission of building the infrastructure for an adaptive professional community and want to contribute your skills, we invite you to consider joining the founding volunteer team. These early roles will help shape how the collective grows, how members are supported, and how new opportunities are created. There is also a strong possibility that founding roles will evolve into paid positions as the collective secures sponsorships, partnerships, and project funding. We are looking for people who are excited about building something meaningful together.

Nonprofit Operations

Help establish the organizational structure, policies, and operational systems needed to support a growing nonprofit community.

Collective Community Management

Support the day-to-day health of the community by helping onboard members, facilitate conversations, and ensure members feel connected and supported.

Business Development

Help identify and connect with nonprofits, startups, and mission-driven organizations that could benefit from working with collective members.

Mentor Program Coordination

Help recruit and organize mentors, match mentors with members, and support the growth of a strong mentorship network.

Get Involved

Why Join the Founding Team

Founding volunteers will have the opportunity to:

  • help shape the future of the collective

  • gain leadership experience building a new organization

  • collaborate with a network of talented technologists

  • contribute to meaningful projects that support nonprofits and startups

  • potentially transition into paid roles as the collective grows

Who This Is For

We are especially interested in people who:

  • care about supporting the technology community

  • enjoy building systems and programs from the ground up

  • are excited to collaborate with others working toward a shared goal