Episode 7
AI Can Strengthen Accountability — but Humans Must Stay In the Loop
Marissa Woodbeck, Head of Digital Accessibility at a major financial institution, shares her powerful journey from being labeled a “lazy learner” to leading enterprise accessibility strategy. Drawing from her background in special education, domestic violence advocacy, and banking governance, she explains how accessibility must be embedded into business processes—not treated as an afterthought. Marissa also discusses the role AI can play in strengthening accountability while keeping humans at the center of inclusive design.
Transcript
Hello, I'm Joe Walensky,
Speaker:and this is the Digital Accessibility Podcast where we
Speaker:meet some of the people behind the progress in accessibility.
Speaker:Today I am pleased to be meeting with
Speaker:Marissa Woodbeck. Hello, Marissa, how are you today?
Speaker:I'm great. How are you today, Joe?
Speaker:Everything's going fine.
Speaker:I'm in my home office in Bellingham, Washington, which is about 80 miles north of Seattle.
Speaker:Where are you talking to us from?
Speaker:Well, I am, for a brief description,
Speaker:I am an African American female with maroon glasses on today, with short hair,
Speaker:presenting from my office in Dallas, Texas.
Speaker:Beautiful weather here today, actually, so it's a great day to be in Dallas.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:it's good to have you join me today for this conversation,
Speaker:and a good place to start is if you could talk a little bit about the nature of your work.
Speaker:Right now I am the head of Digital Accessibility,
Speaker:which sits within Experience Design for a major financial institution.
Speaker:My daily role,
Speaker:I have the honor of supporting a very wonderful team
Speaker:of consultants that supports design and making sure that we
Speaker:start the process of accessibility earlier than later
Speaker:and make sure that we're producing accessible design.
Speaker:But not only that, also providing support to products as they build products
Speaker:and making sure that they're accessible and making sure that while they're in production
Speaker:they are meeting all of our needs. But not just the basics,
Speaker:but also how do we be innovative in the space of accessibility in digital products for
Speaker:a financial institution?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I'd like to learn a little bit more about what's going on in your work,
Speaker:but it's always nice to find out where we came from.
Speaker:And so it'd be helpful if you could talk a little bit about
Speaker:your background and how you
Speaker:found your way into the accessibility profession.
Speaker:Of course. I have the probably most interesting story.
Speaker:That's where everyone says that, but I love my story.
Speaker:I was diagnosed in high school
Speaker:as a lazy learner.
Speaker:That was actually the diagnosis that I received was lazy learner, and which, as we know today,
Speaker:that is not the truth.
Speaker:But I struggled getting accommodations in high school.
Speaker:When I went to college,
Speaker:I finally was formally diagnosed with several different
Speaker:learning challenges along with ADHD,
Speaker:dyslexia, and a cognitive processing disorder.
Speaker:That really impacted my learning.
Speaker:And at that young age of college, at 18,
Speaker:I recognized there that who else is not getting
Speaker:their accommodations? So I went to college for special education at the University of Iowa,
Speaker:Go Hawks. And after I graduated, I was in the classroom for about six months
Speaker:where I realized teaching was not my passion. It was the IEP. It was supporting the parents.
Speaker:It was supporting the child outside of the school
Speaker:to make sure they really have the success for education.
Speaker:So there I started to work for Lutheran Social Services in Minnesota as an IEP advocate
Speaker:and a truancy prevention officer.
Speaker:It may sound weird that I worked in truancy,
Speaker:but a lot of the children who I supported actually had undiagnosed learning challenges.
Speaker:And so they were actually
Speaker:skipping school because school was stressful for them. School was frustrating for them.
Speaker:So marrying the two projects together with IEP advocate,
Speaker:coordinator of specialized services for school
Speaker:under the IDEAL Act,
Speaker:and truancy was a phenomenal program that I worked with
Speaker:because I actually saw the root cause of the truancy and supported it.
Speaker:From there, I started to work in adaptive rec in Las Vegas.
Speaker:I worked at Easterseals in Southern Nevada for several years
Speaker:where I ran an adaptive recreation program for children from the ages of 8 to 21.
Speaker:From there, I started the first overnight camp
Speaker:for children that were usually called too severe,
Speaker:too profound, all these other terms people would use so these kids could not
Speaker:enjoy camp.
Speaker:But luckily, I worked with a great person at Camp Potasy
Speaker:in Las Vegas that opened up their doors to us and allowed us to have camp for all the
Speaker:children that wanted to come,
Speaker:children who never got to experience the joys of being outside and camping.
Speaker:We went whitewater rafting.
Speaker:We did different adaptive rec games.
Speaker:We did a lot there, and that was truly I loved that job.
Speaker:I was there for a while until the program did close due to funding,
Speaker:like a lot of programs did around 2007 in Nevada.
Speaker:And I then went to Domestic Violence Services.
Speaker:And there I said, "Okay, I guess I'm done with that part of my chapter.
Speaker:I'm going to work at a shelter now
Speaker:as a shelter director." I was sitting in the lobby on my second
Speaker:day at that shelter,
Speaker:and I heard someone on the crisis line say, "I'm so sorry, ma'am. We can't bring you in.
Speaker:We don't have a wheelchair lift vehicle to get you into shelter." And I knewright there
Speaker:that my two passions of helping women be safe
Speaker:and supporting an inclusive
Speaker:environment and making sure accessibility was a focus of the program,
Speaker:we're going to come together again.
Speaker:And so therefore I started to create
Speaker:programming for making sure that shelters were accessible.
Speaker:A lot of times women who were fleeing domestic violence who may have had disabilities
Speaker:were turned away,
Speaker:were forced to stay in their situations because the shelter wasn't set
Speaker:up for them to be there and be safe and be successful.
Speaker:So I started my first shelter in my program in Vegas.
Speaker:I started there first and made sure we had programming and policies
Speaker:that were accessible, making sure the shelter was accessible,
Speaker:making sure that we not only
Speaker:made sure the ramps were okay, but making sure our sites were actually accessible.
Speaker:And that's how I got into digital accessibility around 2009,
Speaker:2010,
Speaker:was because we had women who were needing to go to our site to find resources,
Speaker:and it wasn't accessible.
Speaker:Or not just we needed survivors to be able to access our site and to be safe,
Speaker:and to make sure the programming allowed them to be safe.
Speaker:Imagine a screen reader user having to go on a domestic violence site and it's reading
Speaker:out loud the sensitive information on that screen.
Speaker:There's a way we can put some code in there, but it allows them time to get to a safe place.
Speaker:So that was my first thing I did for the shelter I worked for,
Speaker:but that quickly spread throughout the homeless community as well.
Speaker:And I started to support different shelters that supported people who were unhoused
Speaker:and making sure that their programs were accessible
Speaker:and make sure that they could access services.
Speaker:And so I did that space a lot. I worked a lot with Columba Bush,
Speaker:who's a former First Lady of Florida,
Speaker:who did a lot of work to make sure there were evacuation plans that were accessible and
Speaker:safe for all, especially those with mobility needs.
Speaker:We wanted to make sure that they could
Speaker:leave shelters as well. So it was a whole world that I really tapped into
Speaker:to make sure that domestic violence shelters were safe and accessible.
Speaker:From there, I decided to get into the banking world. And so I attended a conference.
Speaker:I swear everything was talking to me at this conference.
Speaker:And I went home that day and I said, "Let me try.
Speaker:What's in the banking world for me?" And I typed in ADA and banking,
Speaker:and my first job at Barclays appeared.
Speaker:And so I was the first U.S.-based
Speaker:ADA coordinator for Barclays Bank U.S.
Speaker:There I set up the programming that made sure they had
Speaker:reasonable accommodations,
Speaker:making sure that we started getting their credit cards in Braille,
Speaker:making sure that we can get our statements in different accessible formats,
Speaker:really making sure that the customer there,
Speaker:no matter what they needed to
Speaker:support their interaction with Barclays, had those interactions and accommodations.
Speaker:So that was my first job into banking.
Speaker:And then from there, I went to USAA where I was a business
Speaker:process consultant, which is a different take on accessibility, but it was really great.
Speaker:And that's where I really learned my governance aspect from,
Speaker:was making sure that not only was accessibility
Speaker:a requirement, but there was accountability based behind it.
Speaker:And so there I really developed a governance program to make sure that we had controls
Speaker:in place to ensure that no matter what product went
Speaker:out from Omnichannel, it was accessible.
Speaker:And then from there,
Speaker:I came to my current institution where I now work
Speaker:and lead a team of 40 individuals that are all phenomenal accessibility consultants in
Speaker:their own way.
Speaker:They are specialists and experts.
Speaker:They are just a phenomenal team that I get to work with every single day,
Speaker:along with a very strong peer group as well.
Speaker:You certainly had a really
Speaker:extensive introduction to the
Speaker:live life of so many people in the accessibility area.
Speaker:And then it's kind of a
Speaker:remarkable pivot to
Speaker:being where you are in the banking area.
Speaker:How did that feel?
Speaker:I imagine that must have been like a significant
Speaker:challenge to kind of be in a very different environment in
Speaker:terms of the work that you're involved in.
Speaker:It was a difference.
Speaker:I will say that working in the nonprofit space when I was supporting shelters,
Speaker:it prepared me for going into the banking world because at times,
Speaker:despite the amount of financial gains the banking industry may have,
Speaker:there's limited funds for things that are not directly bringing in money.
Speaker:And so it did help me to be creative.
Speaker:It helped me to learn the business
Speaker:need really quickly
Speaker:and be able to communicate the accessibility improvements, enhancements,
Speaker:meeting the bare requirements.
Speaker:Sometimes some of my conversations were, it helped me really to connect that to the business
Speaker:case and helped me to really drive
Speaker:change through. This also helps you gain customers. It helps you retain customers.
Speaker:It helps you to be more competitive on the landscape.
Speaker:Talking to those principals really
Speaker:came from my nonprofit background where you had a very limited budget.
Speaker:You had to advocate for the money you needed, and that really helped me as well.
Speaker:But also working in nonprofit and having to speak to grants and speak to other regulatory
Speaker:oversight committees,
Speaker:it taught me also to start to,
Speaker:how do you account for how are you accountable for the accessibility efforts?
Speaker:How do you make them tangible so others can see the work that you're doing?
Speaker:And I think that's really been successful for me today.
Speaker:I mean, in my current work today,
Speaker:I developed a system
Speaker:where we track all of our consultations, which is a little bit different for our world.
Speaker:Normally we do things verbally,
Speaker:but we keep it so we can give metrics and talk about
Speaker:what success criteria we see in our peers are struggling the most in. Where can we use improvements?
Speaker:Where are we showing improvement at? Where are some of our gaps at? That's been really helpful.
Speaker:And I really think my background in nonprofit and that flip to banking really helped me.
Speaker:It was different, though. I was used to a little bit different environment.
Speaker:I wasn't used to the corporate lingo.
Speaker:When I first started, I kept asking myself,
Speaker:are they speaking what are they talking about?
Speaker:I didn't understand the corporate agile language, but it helped me actually
Speaker:stay on track with my neurodiversity.
Speaker:It helped me stay on track. So I loved that flip.
Speaker:It was hard that first year. I had to find myself.
Speaker:I went from being an executive in nonprofit to an IC in banking.
Speaker:So it was a hard switch, but I loved it.
Speaker:And I really embraced the journey.
Speaker:And I try to get others in that journey all the time.
Speaker:It's hard at first, but you can always use those skills and transfer them back and forth.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:that provided a lot of interesting insights about
Speaker:how nonprofits
Speaker:helped you move forward.
Speaker:So that definitely gave me some things to think about that I hadn't thought about before.
Speaker:As you kind of look forward,
Speaker:are there any things that you're particularly excited about or
Speaker:alternatively challenges that you're concerned about as you move forward?
Speaker:I'm excited, actually, for AI,
Speaker:and not for AI to do the role of accessibility,
Speaker:to do the role of
Speaker:all the specialists that are out there in the world. We have a special place.
Speaker:We are the humans that need to be in the loop.
Speaker:I do believe, though, that AI can start to build up our governance and our oversight
Speaker:and making sure that even though we're not at the table because some of our groups are
Speaker:getting smaller, even though we're not at the table, can a tool,
Speaker:can an AI overlay,
Speaker:can something bring you back the data to ensure decisions were made that align with the
Speaker:best practices or policies of whatever institution that we work with?
Speaker:AI does have the capabilities, in my mind, to really provide that.
Speaker:I think in our industry, we're ready for more accountability.
Speaker:We're ready for more just built into BAU, not to be think of a separate thing.
Speaker:Accessibility should not be something that's separate. It should be built into the fabric.
Speaker:And I think our AI, going into AI and moving into AI, that really can help us.
Speaker:It can be a tool for us to see,
Speaker:have they done the proper testing?
Speaker:Have they remediated everything before they've gone to production?
Speaker:So I am excited for AI. I know others in the industry may not be,
Speaker:but I also see a lot of great tools coming out from agencies like Deque and other companies
Speaker:that are using AI now to really make the process
Speaker:faster and also to make people who may not have the skills that they need to do proper testing,
Speaker:it can help them do testing as well. So I'm excited by AI.
Speaker:I'm cautious a little bitright now
Speaker:about maybe the social
Speaker:construct of people maybe thinking that it's not a priority as much as it used to be.
Speaker:It is a priority.
Speaker:And I think as we get into more
Speaker:Gen Zers and getting more financially stable,
Speaker:a lot of Gen Zers use tools and
Speaker:features that are persons with disabilities use,right? Things that like speech-to-text.
Speaker:They use it. They want to be on the go. They use speech-to-text.
Speaker:A lot of my younger Gen Zers, they love dark mode,right?
Speaker:That not only supports them, but it supports a person like me with dyslexia.
Speaker:So I'm excited about innovation in our space. I'm excited about that innovation.
Speaker:But I'm worried that sometimes people think that maybe
Speaker:disability is something that of the past or something that was a big,
Speaker:huge concern a couple of years ago, but now it's more not a bit of concern.
Speaker:We still need to put the same energy and funds and dedication to making our world accessible.
Speaker:So I'm a little concerned that people are kind of taking a pause or sitting back now.
Speaker:But I do think with theright advocacy,
Speaker:we have several great advocates in the industry and great companies like Disability Inn
Speaker:and CSUN that still happens.
Speaker:I think all those great events are ones that we can make sure that accessibility stays
Speaker:in the forefront.
Speaker:Well, thanks for sharing your ideas about AI.
Speaker:There are a lot of really interesting nuggets in there for me to think about
Speaker:and your thoughts about the future challenges.
Speaker:And thanks for taking the time to
Speaker:chat with me about your work and your background.
Speaker:And yeah, I look forward to
Speaker:meeting you in person at some point.
Speaker:I would love that. Several conferences, I'm sure we'll connect sometime.
Speaker:And I'm in Washington quite often because I love it up there.
Speaker:Just gives me a piece of
Speaker:air up there. I love Washington.
Speaker:So this is a great opportunity. I appreciate having a moment to tell my story.
Speaker:Well, thanks a lot for sharing your story, Marissa.
Speaker:Thank you, Joe.
Speaker:Allright. Bye-bye.
Speaker:Bye.
