Meet Our Team
Meet Leslie McKinney, your innovation advocate and product development strategist. Leslie developed her mastery of manufacturing operations and leadership skills over 10 years in management at Xerox. Along with this knowledge, she also developed a strong desire to help people navigate that space to bring their fantastic ideas to market. Leslie eventually discovered her true passion was being a resource and a guide. After leaving Xerox, she become a teacher, mentor, and consultant to innovators and inventors.
Though operations and components were her first love, Leslie has grown an appreciation for the wide network of people it takes to design, manufacture and distribute a single product. She has mentored several inventors and innovators at mHUB Chicago and built a robust community of members and corporate partners as the Chicago Director of Black Women in Science and Engineering (BWISE).
Leslie’s vision for LMK Innovation is to not only get your product to market with integrity and efficiency, but also leverage great ideas to create opportunity and abundance for everyone involved. She works with people of all backgrounds but gravitates toward mission-driven projects and puts diversity, equity, and inclusion first. Her ecosystem of vetted experts is always expanding, with partners in R&D, patenting, supply chain and manufacturing.
Want to book Leslie as a guest at an upcoming panel discussion or fireside chat? She has spoken on a variety of topics including data collection in manufacturing, manufacturer selection, the marriage of hardware/software, physical product development and topics related to STEM such as women in physics, The Future of Female Engineering, and Black women in science.
Click the link to book a call today.