Why Provoc?

Raj Aggarwal

President, Lead Strategist

Raj founded Provoc in 1999 and serves as President and Lead Strategist. Over twenty years of experience as a communications and technology strategist, he has worked with more than 400 nonprofits and socially responsible businesses on a variety of projects including internal and external branding, marketing and customer engagement. Raj keeps Provoc rooted in empathy-driven work by forging partnerships with values-aligned, visionary leaders and has led workshops and talks at dozens of national conferences. He serves on the boards of Think Local First, DC and Ben’s Chili Bowl Foundation, and recently shared his personal story on NPR.

Timothy Bardlavens

Director of Creative Strategy

As Director of Creative Strategy, Timothy helps mold ideas into concrete concepts through the use of design empathy, ensuring creative conveys the perfect emotional and visual language.

Timothy Bardlavens is a Product Design leader with experience leading full life-cycle initiatives for major corporations to recently acquired start-ups across within areas of UX, UI, Marketing, Strategy and more.

At Microsoft Timothy and his team created experiences for over 100 million users through the Microsoft Edge browser. Leading the product’s Core UX features, Timothy collaborated across a multi-discipline team to deliver design strategies, build systems, and tell great stories. Additionally, he led the organization’s Culture Initiative which was responsible for envisioning ideal culture, leading visible change in the organization and modeling inclusive team values.

Will Coyle

Co-CEO, Lead Strategist

As Provoc’s CEO, Will takes great pride in the company’s mission and collaborative values. He enjoys providing sound company structure while also delivering beautiful design solutions for Provoc’s clients. With twenty years of creative strategy experience, Will has an especially strong background in brand development. His work balances functionality, intuitive content delivery, and visually compelling aesthetics.

Vanice Dunn

Director of Partnerships and Equity

Vanice hails from years of experience working directly with members of various non-profits, so she’s all about participation and collaboration. Vanice began to hone her skills in social justice advocacy in an organic way — as a young girl of color in a small southern town, her existence itself became a political statement.  Those experiences gave Vanice practice in being critical of assumptions, dissecting polarizing arguments, and ultimately standing strong in her convictions. Her passion led her to the Provoc team, where she strives to make an impact by building partnerships with visionary clients and serving as lead strategist for brand and communications projects. By rooting her work in a womanist lens, Vanice has a particular passion for projects that combat the ‘isms’ — including racism, classism, and sexism.

Helen LaCroix

Director of Business Development

Helen has over 7 years of experience helping organizations develop informed strategies for growth and collaboration. Her past work includes partnership development roles for affordable housing and economic development organizations. She has also worked as program manager and business development lead in the federal contracting arena. As Director of Business Development at Provoc, Helen applies research, analytical, and writing skills honed through academic training as a historian. She lived in New York, Chicago, Madison, WI, and Lexington, KY before settling in Washington DC, where she now lives with her family. Reading, cooking, and walking her dogs are her favorite pastimes.

Melanie Marine

Project Manager

Melanie has more than a decade of experience managing online/offline strategic communications projects, and she’s adept at crafting long-term impact with clients through open communication and team participation. She loves to streamline processes, figuring out ways to save both time and money, hence the love of project management! She has an MBA from George Washington University, and enjoys volunteering. She’s also an avid hiker.

Cory Osborn

Senior Designer, Lead Strategist

Cory has worked as a design strategist for Provoc for more than 11 years, and as a commercial illustrator and designer for over 20 years. His education includes traditional and digital art studies at the University of California Santa Barbara and graphic design at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. A resident of Washington, DC from 2002 until 2010, Cory now lives in Amsterdam, NL. Living in Europe gives him valuable perspective and insight on global social change and citizen engagement movements.

Erica Priggen Wright

Co-CEO, Lead Strategist

Erica brings change-making strategies to life. With more than a decade of experience creating powerful storytelling campaigns, Erica has perfected her ability to manage teams and generate high-level collaboration with a highly intuitive, creative process. Her impressive resume before joining the Provoc team most recently includes leading the entertainment department for almost a decade at Free Range Studios, producing the agency’s marquis video projects, as well as freelance consulting as an executive creative producer in the San Francisco Bay area. Prior to that, she worked in production on large-scale feature film, television and commercials. She has a Master’s in Consciousness Studies, her area of focus being integral theory and the use of storytelling for behavior change.

Kate Purcell

Senior Designer

Kate’s background of progressive education, years of living abroad, a deep love of art and a passion for values-aligned work has fueled the creative work she has developed over the last ten years. After graduating from Marlboro College with majors in Visual Arts and Literature, Kate traveled to far-flung locations to work on issues touching on the environment and international development.

Kate designs strong, creative graphics supported by engaging, accessible text to ensure that organizations inspire their audiences. She has designed and led projects for large and small organizations, including Save the Children, the National Council of Churches and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Kate lives in Baltimore with her family. She teaches meditation and enjoys her urban farm complete with chickens, compost and goats.

Ellen Roche

Lead Strategist

Ellen is a seasoned storyteller who combines political strategy, creative writing and teaching expertise in her work with clients. Over the years, she has developed major campaigns and rebrands for environmental, economic, human rights, civil rights and social justice organizations. Some of her favorite clients include the Government Alliance on Race & Equity, Living Cities, URGE, Human Rights First, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Roosevelt Institute, Longwood University and the National Brain Tumor Society. Prior to joining Provoc, Ellen led Free Range’s branding department, taught English in DC public schools, earned a master’s in education and worked for several human rights nonprofits. She moonlights as a classical soprano around DC and can cook a mean curry.

Carter Stowell

Data Analytics, Lead Strategist

As a data analytics consultant and strategist at Provoc, Carter Stowell brings almost twenty years of experience to successfully managing distributed project teams. With a passion for predictive analytics and data-driven strategy, Carter can synthesize complex information into actionable insights and solutions. He is fluent in web, email, CRM, clickstream, search and social analytics, user experience design, and agile project management. Carter is certified as both a Project Management Professional by PMI, and ScrumMaster by Scrum Alliance. Before bringing his talents to Provoc, Carter began building his foundation in web work at Wired Digital, where he provided production and project management for Wired.com and Hotbot.com.

Lane Trisko

Director of Digital and Data Strategy

Lane joined the Provoc team with over ten years of experience in data architecture and strategy, analytics, and database development. He has served both higher education and non-profits as a consultant and takes pride in offering his technical expertise to organizations that are changing the world. Lane’s varied and unique skillset ranges from big picture digital and data strategy/product development, to the technical nuts and bolts of database development, to analytics and data consumption. This puts him in a unique position to serve non-profits in ways effective, efficient and far-ranging as a ‘jack of all trades’ in all things data.

Erica VanDorn

Project Manager

Erica VanDorn brings to Provoc’s Washington, D.C. office nearly 5 years design agency experience as an IT/UX Project Manager and IT Business Analyst working on federal websites. She adds value with a solid understanding of research design, survey methodology, and content analysis. Erica earned a B.S. in statistics with a minor in computer science at University of Michigan, where she served as an undergraduate student instructor of statistics. Erica is highly collaborative and well versed in marketing, interactive, and technology.

Jacob Worrell

Director of Project Management

Jacob has many years of experience in project and product management and systems development. At Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Jacob built the digital products division from the ground up, managing a skilled team of technologists and activists and delivering successfully on a diverse portfolio of digital products. His pioneering work helping nonprofits build product teams has been featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and presented by Jacob at SXSW, The Personal Democracy Forum, and Dreamforce. Jacob also served four years in the United States Army and is an Iraq War veteran.