Nova Wehman-Brown is a seasoned UX (user experience) and product design leader with a love of bringing people together—whether it’s through her work, cooking for arge groups of people, or her lifelong love of music. With over 25 years in design, marketing, branding–with a two year detour into grantmaking–Nova currently serves as the Senior Director of UX and Product Design at Accela, a CivicTech innovator, where she runs teams of designers, researchers, and developers focusing on making city and county websites easier and more accessible for public users. Her career journey has spanned from major players like Wells Fargo, Walmart.com, TiVo, and Blue Shield to nonprofit work with organizations like Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Firehouse Arts Center in California. Additionally Nova ran a nonprofit collective in California for two years and has started and dissolved at least 3 other businesses–this guarantees a few of the mistakes she knows NOT to make. Nova leads by listening to people and finding ways to remove the obstacles that might be holding them back. 

Singing has been a constant joy for Nova since age six, when she saw Grease, her first movie in a theater and then she got her first singalong album on vinyl for Christmas (note :Grease is not appropriate for 6yos, but it was the 70s). She joined NCMC Pride Chorus, (now QJC Chorus) after the pandemic when she knew that it was important to sing in community as a way to weather the grief of the past years and find healing being surrounded by her community. For her, singing is more than a pastime—it feels deeply spiritual. Singing with others is like holding and being held, a community experience she cherishes. Before QJC Chorus, Nova has sung in Gospel, Madrigal, Show, Russian folk, and college choruses, among others; and has sung with Irish folk bands, a Russian opera singer and jazz singers. 

Nova volunteered to be on the QJC board because of her deep belief in the power of belonging and joy that Mara has fostered in the singing group, and she can see a sustainable path to the growth and expansion of QJC programming and services while still keeping those central core tenants of Mara’s way of leading. Nova brings the same joy and connection to fostering accessible, user-centered experiences and the QJC board feels like the perfect “lane” to apply her decades of experience in organizational growth.