Based in Tbilisi, working internationally, and paying attention to what's worth doing next. Open to international and remote partnerships: full-time, freelance, or ongoing.
What I Do
Ethnographic & Mixed-Methods Research
In-depth field research: interviews, participant observation, and synthesis that gets past stated preferences to find what's actually shaping behavior and decisions.
Outputs: In-depth interview studies, synthesis frameworks, journey maps, ethnographic field reports, insight briefs
Cultural Strategy & Stakeholder Facilitation
Bridging the gap between what organizations intend and what communities actually experience, through facilitation, stakeholder mapping, and cultural analysis that accounts for context.
Outputs: Workshop design, stakeholder maps, cross-cultural frameworks, engagement strategies, facilitation guides
Visual Storytelling
Documentary-rooted photography, film, and design work that gives research findings and organizational stories a form that actually lands.
Outputs: Documentary photography, short-form documentary films, brand identity systems, presentation design, visual frameworks
Program Design & Implementation
Building learning programs and organizational systems from research through delivery, including curriculum, training materials, and monitoring tools designed to keep working after the project ends.
Outputs: Learning curricula, program frameworks, workshop series, implementation guides, monitoring tools
featured projects
A Bit About Me
I've been trying to understand people and make things for as long as I can remember: designing Neopets signatures in fifth grade as a lil' ol' So Cal boy who may or may not have downloaded an illegal copy of Photoshop 7.0, falling in love with theater because it let me see the world through someone else's eyes, studying both public policy and cinema & media at The University of Chicago because I couldn't pick just one.
That tension between understanding systems and making things followed me through four years curating TEDxUChicago, a role championing diverse voices in the nonprofit sector, a multimedia design role that taught me I hate arbitrary decisions, and eventually to design research, where I realized I didn't have to choose. You can study what people need and give that understanding a form that actually creates change.
I've spent the last several years doing exactly that: working with Fortune 500 companies at agencies and firms, then building programs and communications plans from research through implementation, alongside local partners and community organizations.
The scope has ranged from two-month research sprints with Fortune 500 companies to two years embedded in a community in Kutaisi, Georgia. In both places, the work produced things meant to outlast the project: Miro templates adopted across a research team, a full-length entrepreneurship curriculum for Georgian youth programs, and cultural frameworks built for cross-cultural healthcare research.
I speak English, Mandarin, and enough Georgian to hold a conversation.
Let's Talk!
The best collaborations I've had started with someone reaching out about something slightly undefined: "We have this problem and we're not sure what to do about it."
If you've got something brewing, feel free to reach out and connect!
freddy (a) ftsao.com
Tbilisi, Georgia | Chicago, IL, USA
