Azadeh Hardiman is a seasoned leader and organization builder focused on diversification and innovation strategies that sit at the intersection of people and technology. In her career, she has launched several new businesses and products for start-ups, Fortune 100 companies, and nonprofits across a range of industries including insurance, financial services, media, telecommunications, and digital technology.
A believer of customer centricity, before it became popular and the importance of developing and growing people through experiencing the full product lifecycle from ideation through operations and growth, Azadeh has had the unique opportunity to directly work in and across several functional areas over her 25+ year career. She prides herself in finding great talent and connecting people with opportunities to challenge themselves to accelerate their personal and professional growth.
Azadeh currently leads Level20, Progressive’s new business incubator. She is responsible for establishing and growing the organization to launch and operate new products and business lines that meet the broad needs of Progressive’s customers beyond insurance.
Prior to joining Progressive, Azadeh was a founding team member of mPortal, a start-up technology company that focused on a single idea – people will use their phones for more than phone calls (seven years BEFORE the iPhone was introduced). Azadeh helped grow mPortal into a profitable company in less than three years and helped develop several new-to-market digital consumer products over the course of her tenure. mPortal was acquired by BroadSoft and subsequently by Cisco.
Azadeh has served in leadership roles on several nonprofit boards and is currently on the Board of The Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio, Advisory Board of the Ron Brown Scholarship Program, and President of the UVA Alumni Club for Northeast Ohio.
Azadeh is a speaker on innovation and business building topics and has a degree in Economics from the University of Virginia.