We turn human understanding into new business opportunities.
Our aspiration
We believe that the solutions of the future can’t always build on past experience. We must be open to new thinking and what emerges in the world. It takes courage and willpower to break free from just recreating to what already exists, and instead, create the solutions of the future. This is our dream.
Our name
We are in the business of exploration. Always seeking deeper meaning and new opportunities. We do this by asking questions. Even our name is a question. And we do it by experimenting. Getting closer to the unknown. It wasn’t a bird. Nor a plane. But something completely new to the world. Something fantastic. What are you seeking?
Our mindset
We are not your regular management consultants. We refuse to be. Our clients tell us we are different to anyone they ever worked with, and we consider that as a strength. Who would trust an innovation consultant that wasn’t quirky? We insist on being open and curious to the world with no standardised models for solutions.
Our story
IS IT A BIRD was founded the summer of 2011 by Line Groes based on a dream of creating positive, long-lasting changes for businesses and organisations. And with a simple vision: To become the leading human centered innovation agency in the world, where highly intelligent and creative people thrive and leave their mark on the world.
We realise our purpose by combining analysis, design and strategy.
Analysis
Our starting point is always deep human understanding. With a solid background in social science and behavioral economics we identify patterns in the ways we as humans feel, act and prioritize.
- User journeys
- Etnographic research
- Segmentation and personas
- Stakeholder mapping
- Surveys
- Trend forecasting
Design
We are makers. We work iteratively with prototyping to ensure speed and accuracy. In this way, we ensure solutions with commercial impact and relevance for the user.
- Design thinking
- Prototyping and test
- Conceptualisation
- Design sprints
- Service design
- Experience design
Strategy
We combine user insights with market and societal trends, in order to identify clear opportunity spaces with a market potential that feed directly into the strategic decision-making process.
- Purpose defintion
- Category drivers
- Strategic narrative
- Innovation capacity
- Business model canvas
- Scenario planning
Meet the team.
We are driven by our employees – a gathering of innovation geeks, original thinkers and passionate practitioners. Our areas of expertise span a wide range of disciplines, making it possible to develop solutions across fields and industries. Diversity in skills, personality, nationality and views is the cornerstone of our budding innovation environment.
Borbala Kun

Borbala Kun

Borbala Kun
Borbala believes that today’s global challenges demand innovative human-centered solutions. Her cross-disciplinary background gives her the ability to merge creativity with analytical skills and frame solutions that rely on empathy and lateral thinking. Borbala’s interest in sustainability is reflected back from all her projects, as she believes, as a designer, it’s her primary obligation to direct her skills for the betterment of humanity towards a more ecological civilization.
She has always been seeking challenges to push herself out of comfort and explore new places and people. This curiosity and her drive to learn and create value led her to work and study in Lisbon, Lima, Budapest and now Copenhagen. She is always keen to take up new hobbies - currently she is exploring the world of yoga in her freetime.
MSocSc Strategic Design and Entrepreneurship. Copenhagen Business School
Bsc Industrial Design Engineering. Budapest University of Technology
Carolina Navarro Sarmiento

Carolina Navarro Sarmiento

Carolina Navarro Sarmiento
Carolina is a multidisciplinary designer who is passionate about how designing with and for people can address systemic issues to create a more ethical, sustainable and just world. This has led her to develop her skills within the areas of sustainable and circular design as well as behavioural design.
Her skills lie in the process of transforming human insights into design solutions. She enjoys the uncertainty around the form a design solution may take at the end of a design process and making that tangible.Having been born in Barcelona and living in different cities such as Stockholm, London and Copenhagen has allowed her to experience how culture and context affect behaviour and attitudes. Outside of work, she enjoys creating things be that through pottery, sewing, gardening or drawing.
MSc Design & Innovation. Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
BEng Design, Innovation & Creative Engineering. Queen Mary University of London
Cecilie Rasmussen

Cecilie Rasmussen

Cecilie Rasmussen
Cecilie is curious about the world around her. She loves to challenge assumptions about everyday life, which are taken for granted. She is especially driven by using ethnography to put herself in the place of others, in order to experience their perspective and convert it to knowledge, which then can be used to solve problems for people and organizations.
With her bachelor’s degree in anthropology, Cecilie has a solid theoretical and practical foundation for working with qualitative methods. She is dedicated to the applied anthropology and insists that an insight is never better than the way it is communicated and brought to life.
BSc Anthropology. University of Copenhagen
Christine Thalsgård Henriques

Christine Thalsgård Henriques

Christine Thalsgård Henriques
Christine has for more than 10 years supported organisations in creating relevant and attractive solutions for customers; by leading strategic research projects, driving customer-centric agenda’s and applying human-centric methods in a global, multi-stakeholder environments like Symbion Science Park and A.P Møller Maersk.
As researcher and consultant with deep roots in qualitative research methods, design thinking and strategic problem solving her aspiration is to inspire and lead organisations, leaders and teams to become more customer-centric, digital, data-driven and to achieve their needs for innovation and growth. She leads with curiosity and creativity, thrive working in teams and see new project as an opportunity to rethink how problems can be approached.
Industrial Ph.D. Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Symbion Science Park and CBS
Cand. merc. International Management and Marketing, CBS
Maersk, Strategy Lead
Clea Trøst Bigum

Clea Trøst Bigum

Clea Trøst Bigum
Being creative on command and with a Pippi-mindset, Clea is our Junior Communication Designer, creating content for internal and external use. Writing catchy copies, producing profound pictures and engage people across the board — even if she hasn’t tried it before, she is most likely able to do it.
Going against the stream is a core trait in Clea. During her bachelor’s degree in business administration and psychology at CBS, she did a semester in non-other than Peru, only to come home thinking that one bachelor was not enough. Having read somewhere that people born in 1996 would have to work to the age of 74,5, she decided to unleash her creative side and start Visual Communications at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Furthermore, she has real life experience from working at a communications agency in Copenhagen.
BSc in Business Administration and Psychology, CBS
MSc in Management of Creative Business Processes, CBS
Emil Buch Jacobsen

Emil Buch Jacobsen

Emil Buch Jacobsen
Emil is an anthropologist with a special interest in the entanglement of humans and technology. He believes that technology is not a solution in itself, thus understanding humans’ needs, aspirations and challenges are his starting point for his research.
Emil is strong in qualitative methods and has a passion of finding patterns in complex research data. His curiosity for exploring cultures has led him from remote places in East and West Africa to engineering communities in Japan.
MSc Techno-Anthropology. Aalborg University
BSc Anthropology. University of Copenhagen
Emilie Baage Stuhr

Emilie Baage Stuhr

Emilie Baage Stuhr
Cultural expert with a sustainable approach.
Emilie is an anthropologist with extraordinary talents in revealing people’s true selves, with all the complexities and controversies we contain. She is conscious of the climate, and has previously worked to anchor Nykredit’s environmental strategy in Copenhagen. Emilie’s interest in sustainability is contagious in her project work, where the solutions always take into account the wider context that they seek to influence or change.
Data Analyst. Nykredit
MA Applied Cultural Analysis. University of Copenhagen
Fenja Lyng Rytter

Fenja Lyng Rytter

Fenja Lyng Rytter
Fenja is a skilled and passionate facilitator, known for her natural ability to lead and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, working closely with both clients, stakeholders, and end-users. She is dedicated to building human-centered strategies and solutions that provide value to both users, businesses, and society as a whole.
Fenja has a unique perspective on innovation due to her experience with design thinking and behavioral economics. She strongly believes that these approaches have the power to create meaningful and impactful solutions and that human participation is essential in every step of the innovation process.
Strategy Director. Flip Studio
Strategy Director. Hatch & Bloom
Senior Insight Strategist. MediaCom DK
MSc Media Science, Philosophy & Sociology of Religion. Aarhus University
Freya Williams

Freya Williams

Freya Williams
Freya is a cultural analyst with a background in strategy and purpose-driven innovation. Through her cross-sector work in London and Copenhagen, she has first-hand experience translating human-centred insights into tangible business solutions.
She believes in the power of foresight and design to uncover new opportunity spaces, and ultimately create better futures for both people and planet.
Insights and Expert Lead. &Simple
Impact Strategist. Rainmaking Innovation
MA Applied Cultural Analysis. University of Copenhagen
Harmen Pelders

Harmen Pelders

Harmen Pelders
A people-researcher at heart, Harmen is interested in what is now and how it might be next. Reading between the lines of everyday human problems and long-term business perspectives, you will notice he focuses on change. Putting his broad base in social sciences theory and methodology to use on topics such as life at home, the urban fabric, and brand experiences he simultaneously draws on his experience in communication. Harmen enters each new project with his ever-increasing drive to understand people better and to help others make sense in an ever-changing world.
If he is not distilling insights from research findings, you are most likely to find Harmen cheffing in his kitchen – or going the extra mile on a bikepacking trip.
MSc Spatial Designs & Society. Roskilde University
Ida Enggaard

Ida Enggaard

Ida Enggaard
As a design anthropologist, Ida uses her curiosity about humans and her interest in questioning the world as a launchpad to understand and create change. She is a great believer in empathy and in understanding the world from all its different perspectives; whether it is understanding how health care professionals perceive their patients, or in trying to understand the philosophy of yoga.
By combining anthropology and design Ida is experienced in elevating anthropological perspectives into actions. She has a toolbox of ways to implement design initiatives in the research process, as well as to work with participatory innovation and to bring the human perspective into play in co-designing processes.
MSc. IT Product Design. University of Southern Denmark
BCs in Anthropology. University of Aarhus
Jakob Schjelderup

Jakob Schjelderup

Jakob Schjelderup
With his background in Political Science, Jakob has in-depth knowledge of how public institutions, society and people interact. He is interested in how deep understandings of people’s experiences can be turned into innovative solutions, which benefit both users and businesses. Jakob has a big passion for travelling and sport. He plays football with his friends in their football club Copenfalster, where they are about to conquer the Danish Sunday league.
MSc Political Science. University of Copenhagen
Julie Agersnap

Julie Agersnap

Julie Agersnap
Julie is motivated by understanding humans and their behaviour, and how this can contribute to valuable insights and/or concepts and designs. She is especially curious about how information technologies are a part of our everyday life and society; whether it is questioning the existing use of different technologies, or how to change the attitude of bringing in new systems in traditional frames, such as teaching and competency development.
Julie is currently studying Communication and IT at University of Copenhagen where she is positioning herself in the tense space between research and design. Here she is expanding her toolbox with both quantitative and qualitative methods combined with different design initiatives.
Ma.IT in Communication and IT. University of Copenhagen
Ba.IT in Information Studies. University of Aarhus
Junyi Cai

Junyi Cai

Junyi Cai
Junyi comes from China, and now enjoys his life in Copenhagen. By fusing his Eastern upbringing with Western education, he is fluent in understanding human insights and navigating different perspectives in multicultural contexts. He was a hotelier and a marketer before he became a strategic designer, putting himself in the shoes of the customer is just business as usual for him. With the use of his emphatic lens, he unfolds the underlining needs, wants, and social dynamics of every lived experience. Moreover, his cross-disciplinary background education offers him skills and various design tools, models, and methods to create the synergy between design & business and foster innovation.
Junyi cares deeply about the environmental challenges of today, he designs board games to better communicate climate change in his free time.
MSocSc Strategic Design and Entrepreneurship. Copenhagen Business School
BA Hospitality Business Management. César Ritz Colleges Switzerland
Katey Diamond

Katey Diamond

Katey Diamond
A future focused designer fitted with behavioural lenses
As lead consultant and partner at IS IT A BIRD, Katey’s passion lies in bridging human understanding with new concepts that fit the reality and context. Katey is a designer by education and uses Design Thinking in her daily life to help organisations create more value for their customers. She believes in the power of empathy and optimism to create impact, and has led human-centred skills development processes with IIAB’s biggest global clients.
Senior Research Executive. The Big Picture, London
Msc Product Design. University of Leeds
Laura Houvenaeghel Willersted

Laura Houvenaeghel Willersted

Laura Houvenaeghel Willersted
With an interdisciplinary background in Sociology, Communications and Media Studies, Laura brings strong skills in gathering and analysing complex knowledge on human social behaviour and translating them into clear and useful insights, concepts and initiatives.
As researcher and consultant Laura draws on strategic tools and methods from design thinking as well as her expertise in behavioral economics to understand how and why people behave the way they do and create innovative solutions.
Strategic Consultant. Acceleration Nordic
Behavioural and Insights Researcher. Flip Studio
MSc. Sociology. The London School of Economics
BA. Communications and Media Studies. University of Aalborg, Copenhagen
Lea Møller Svendsen
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Lea Møller Svendsen

Lea Møller Svendsen
Lea puts her curiosity and ability to connect the dots in cultural patterns in the centre of her work. This brings her to constantly look for new approaches to the challenges she faces and question status quo. As an anthropologist, she believes that being humble about what you think you know and asking questions are important first steps to reach innovative solutions. Her fascination of undiscovered territory has led her to do fieldwork in Berlin, London and Vancouver where she has studied urban spaces and alternative economies.
Lea always seeks out possibilities to gain knowledge and develop new skills - and not just within her field. At the moment, she is also working on perfecting her handstand and creating delicate latte art in the IIAB café.
Program Director. DANSIC
MSc Anthropology. University of Copenhagen
Louise Vang Jensen

Louise Vang Jensen

Louise Vang Jensen
An anthropological powerhouse
Louise curiously asks concise, clarifying questions that always lead to the most effective solutions on all kinds of projects. Being a gifted storyteller, she untangles complex ideas and converts them into inspiring and relevant pointers. As a true people interpreter and an accomplished analyser, Louise not only masters finding patterns in data and forces them to do her bidding, she knows exactly how to be one step ahead. Among a bunch of her other stories, her former experience from working in a bell tower, certainly rings our bell.
Project Worker. INDEX: Design to Improve Life
Project Assistant. Hausenberg
MSc Anthropology. University of Copenhagen
Lydia Lynggaard

Lydia Lynggaard

Lydia Lynggaard
Lydia is a design engineer with a holistic systematic and analytical approach. She is familiar with numerous design methods and complex stakeholder management. Lydia believes a good solution is designed for its context with relevant actors considered. She is particularly experienced in co-creational and user-involved design. Lydia is passionate about prototyping and finds great motivation in designing for sustainability with sustainability courses in her backpack from her education at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
MSc Design & Innovation. Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
BSc Design & Innovation. Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Marie Helene Pers

Marie Helene Pers

Marie Helene Pers
Marie is driven by understanding humans and their behaviour, needs, and knowledge in order to create and deliver valuable recommendations. Wether it means exploring how to build more inclusive public spaces for elderly people or how to create the best experience when a container moves from one destination to another, Marie believes the meaningful starting point is to explore the lived experiences of humans.
Marie is currently studying a master of Applied Cultural Analysis at University of Copenhagen where she continues to fill her qualitative backpack with methodological and analytical tools. When she is not wearing her qualitative backpack, she enjoys packing her travel backpack that has been with her around the world and hopefully will many more times in the future.
Research Assistant. CoRe
Research Assistant. Social Action
BCs European Ethnology. University of Copenhagen
Michael Hallam

Michael Hallam

Michael Hallam
Michael is a researcher driven by excavating the hidden facets of human experience to develop long-lasting and meaningful solutions. With a background spanning business strategy, organisational sociology and strategic design, he brings together diverse perspectives in his approach to problem-solving leading to more holistic outcomes.
Having previously cofounded a startup, Michael has developed an entrepreneurial mindset with a deep-seated interest in the inner workings of innovation. He believes design offers unique potential for value generation in markets that have yet to take shape — where commercial opportunity is not only discovered but also created.
MSocSc Strategic Design and Entrepreneurship. Copenhagen Business School
BSc in Business Administration and Sociology. Copenhagen Business School
Mikkel Rausner

Mikkel Rausner

Mikkel Rausner
Mikkel has a background within the qualitative discipline in combination with organizations, markets and globalization. This allows him to gain insight into both the client’s and the informant’s worldview, which gives a more holistic understanding of the studied field. In his approach he uses curiosity to be open-minded and explorative, in order to reveal what goes beyond the immediate impression. He also has a critical perspective which makes him question perceived truisms in the field in order to identify new possibilities and understandings.
When he is not at his desk or in the field, he enjoys being social, watch football or play a game of squash.
MA Applied Cultural Analysis. University of Copenhagen
Neele Marie Schürmann

Neele Marie Schürmann

Neele Marie Schürmann
With a professional start as an event manager, it has always been of Neele's interest to establish a structured approach to projects and at the same time create space for creativity and exchange. It is important for her to work in an environment that supports growth and interdisciplinarity since she believes innovation is driven by exchange and leads to a reimagined future. With her passion for successful project management, design, as well as human-centred insights, she pursues out-of-the-box concepts. Paying close attention to details, she develops innovative solutions using Design Thinking. Studying and working in Germany, The Netherlands, and Denmark, Neele was able to develop a strong intercultural awareness. This, combined with her cross-disciplinary professional background, allows her to tackle any problem and drive it towards the desired goal.
BA Creative Business, Media Management. NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences
Minor Communication Design. KEA Copenhagen School of Design and Technology
Apprenticeship as Event Manager. Koelnmesse GmbH
Pernille Christel Jensen

Pernille Christel Jensen

Pernille Christel Jensen
The one with overview and an impressive eye for detail
Pernille is our calm center of the hurricane, who makes anything and everything in the office run smoothly. Besides the daily accounting and office administration, she is the one in charge of planning events and happenings, and managing the procurement of your technical equipment and design interior. With a former career from the VIP lounge in SAS, you are guaranteed an exceptional service when staying at the office. Never leave without tasting a cup of her well-brewed cafe latté.
Gospel Singer. Østerbro Church
VIP Host. SAS VIP Lounge
Barista and Owner. Kenya Kaffe at Strandvejen
Rasmus Thomsen

Rasmus Thomsen

Rasmus Thomsen
A visionary entrepreneur with an artistic edge
Rasmus is our CEO and has background in both social science and design. He is an innovation geek, with a mind tuned to design thinking. Rasmus works at the forefront of development, with a critical understanding of the forces behind disruption, connecting technology, trends and human insights. He advises both public and private organisations on innovation, and helps strengthen their capacity at a strategic and tactical level. With over 100 workshops under his belt, Rasmus holds a unique ability to engage people in culture change.
Innovation Consultant. Danish Broadcasting Service
MSc Design, Communication & Media. IT University of Copenhagen
Sasha Kohar

Sasha Kohar

Sasha Kohar
Sasha is an experience design consultant who is passionate in understanding what makes any experience a remarkable one. Bringing her scientific approach to problem solving derived from psychology and strategic brand communications, Sasha has been able to apply design thinking to overcoming all kinds of business challenges and identify opportunity spaces for innovation that people will find meaningful. As she believes in the value of closely collaborating with cross-disciplinary teams, she has become experienced in facilitating and managing user-centric design processes of various scales.
Sasha is comfortable balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders to ensure thoughtful strategies are produced wherever she is involved and is excited to continue to do so now that she has made her move from Jakarta to Copenhagen.
Experience Design & Strategy Planning. Wunderman Thompson
Corporate Communications. Astra International
BSc Psychology. University of New South Wales
Sune Holm Thøgersen

Sune Holm Thøgersen

Sune Holm Thøgersen
Strategist with a deep passion for people
Sune deeply believes that understanding the behaviour, needs and dreams of people is a powerful agent of change. The core theme throughout his career has been both an ambition and ability to put humans at the center of decision making processes. With a background in Political Science and too many hours spend following and participating in debates about society, trends and the possibilities and pitfalls of technology, he combines human insights with larger societal and planetary trends when developing strategies, services and products for clients. He used to obsess over American politics, but after Biden became president he luckily have a lot more spare time not death scrolling Twitter, so he kind of needs a new hobby.
Director of Insights & Strategy. Advice
Consultant. Local Government Denmark Consultancy Agency
Service Design Expert Programme. Summer School of University of the Arts London
MSc Political Science. University of Copenhagen
Thit Hammerich Clausen

Thit Hammerich Clausen

Thit Hammerich Clausen
Thit has always had a profound interest and curiosity when it comes to understanding people, cultures and different ways of being. This is why she moved to Australia when she was 16 years old, chose the profession of anthropology and why she lived in Norway for a semester during her bachelor. Thit is constantly longing to go abroad and her heart is split between her three favourite countries - Denmark, the home of her family, Australia with its beautiful west coast that has the best waves to surf and Norway with its stunning nature and mountains to hike.
Thit is driven by being in the field, immersing herself in people’s stories, changing things for the better and turning insights from the field into findings and tangible solutions. She is especially interested in contributing with anthropological findings that can change our perspective on how we organise our society and the way we view habits that might seem set in stone.
MA in Applied Cultural Analysis. University of Copenhagen
BSc Anthropology. University of Copenhagen