The Location Lab
Sharper strategies. Bolder positioning. Stronger places.
Join our upcoming Workshop
Some things are better learned by doing than by reading about them. We design workshops and master classes for FDI and place branding professionals who want to sharpen how they think about strategy, communication and investor engagement. Participants work on challenges from their own organisations, using structured methods that produce usable results within the session itself.
Our current topics include design thinking for investment promotion, strategic communications for IPAs, and investor experience design. We develop new formats continuously based on what we see in our advisory work - the problems that keep showing up across agencies tend to be the ones worth building a learning format around.
Formats range from half-day sessions to multi-part programms. We deliver for individual organisations and for mixed groups of professionals, who benefit from working alongside peers in a similar role at other agencies.
ABOUT US
Innovation in Economic Development
The Location Lab is a boutique, focused advisory practice, serving economic development, investment promotion and place branding organizations. That is our entire world. We guide cities, regions and nations that want clarity in their strategy, better conversations with investors and results they can explain to boards, ministries and stakeholders. We help teams step back from the day-to-day work, look at challenges from a fresh angle and make well-founded decisions about where to focus their time and energy. We understand the political dynamics, stakeholder complexities, and the constant tension between doing everything and doing the right thing.
The Location Lab exists because investment promotion and place branding deserve better strategic support than what most consulting firms offer. Large consultancies bring process but rarely understand the realities of a public mandate. They produce strategic documents, we produce decisions teams can act on.
WHAT WE DO
Our work sits at the intersection of strategy, communications and implementation. We help agencies define where to focus, how investors and stakeholders actually experience the organisation and the location, and how to make internal operations and external messaging reinforce each other.
STRATEGY & IMPLEMENTATION: From strategic clarity to daily practice. We help organisations define priorities, aling teams and stay involved through implementation coaching if needed.
COMMUNICATION STRATEGY: Structure, clarity and consistency in how your organisation communicates internally, to investors and to stakeholders.
FDI ADVISORY: Strategy development, targeting, value proposition and investor engagement, grounded in how investment promotion actually works.
BRANDING & POSITIONING: Positioning that stands out because you made a genuine strategic choice instead of trying to please everyone.
HOW WE WORK
We work with design thinking / service design as our core method for moving organisations from complexity to direction. We start by understanding how things work, where frictions occurs, what assumptions have gone unquestioned. Then we work collaboratively to reframe the challenge before rushing to solutions. Sessions are focused. Ideas get developed, challenged and refined. Early concepts are made tangible and tested quickly, which reduces the risk of investing time and resources in the wrong direction.
This leads to clearer priorities, stronger internal alignment and solutions that are easier to implement. It turns strategy into something people understand, support and use in their daily work. And what matters most: the shared language and problem-solving mindset that stays with the team long after we're gone.
Our mission is to provide a human-centered idea development approach to locations around the world.
We translate insights into actionable location strategies.
Curious to learn more about how we help EDOs and IPAs to be more innovative and to provide service offerings to investors and the community that matter? Contact us.
THE LOCATION BLOG
THE LOCATION LAB TEAM
Let’s Work Together
SIRPA TSIMAL
Founder
Zurich, Switzerland
Sirpa Tsimal is an economic development and foreign direct investment (FDI) strategist with solid practice in developing marketing programs and partnerships between the public and private sector. Sirpa initiated The Location Lab project with the aim to bring innovation skills to the FDI profession.
Sirpa is a frequent speaker at industry events and a workshop facilitator for innovation learning programs.
She currently works as the Director Investment Promotion at Switzerland Global Enterprise, the Swiss federal IPA where she focuses her work on emerging tech. Sirpa lived in NYC for 15 years, where she run and scaled the mentorship program at two health tech accelerators, and developed a workshop and innovation tool kit for IPAs.
Prior, Sirpa was the managing partner and co-founder of TSIMANN LLC, a communications agency serving global EDOs and corporate clients. Clients included NYCEDC, Greater Zurich Area, City of Basel, State of Connecticut, South Australia, among others.
Sirpa graduated from University of Zurich with a Master of Arts in Communication Sciences.
MICHELLE ABBOUD
Co-Founder
Washington DC, USA
Michelle Abboud is an Export Promotion and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) professional with 25+ years’ experience in economic development. Michelle is customer-oriented in all her endeavors. Current and prior clients have included European, Middle East and APAC regional government institutions, as well as individual companies. Michelle has advised both Fortune 1000 companies as well as fast growing SME’s on their location decisions. She has supported firms like Pratt & Whitney, The Hershey Co., Corning Inc., Novocure, and Aurora Flight Sciences (Boeing). Her project scope has included: FDI promotion, market studies, distributor and licensing partner searches, trade missions, and economic development training. Michelle is an industry generalist with years of experience in the key sectors of Life Sciences, Medtech, and all things IT-related, including Fintech & Blockchain.
Michelle is based in Washington DC and a long-time associate of American World Services, a boutique consulting firm in Washington DC in the Export Marketing and FDI Promotion field. Michelle graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, DC with a Master of Science in Foreign Service and International Business Diplomacy in 1996 and holds a BS in Physics and Mathematics.
OUR INNOVATION EXPERT
MARIANNE AERNI
Coach & Innovation Facilitator
Marianne is a coach and facilitator for innovation. Marianne coaches and facilitates her clients to solve real world problems for their customers. She has experience coaching agile transformation programs, has built human centered design programs and run strategy and culture change programs for clients in the beauty, pharma and finance sector. Marianne has worked with fortune 500, startups and government agencies. She is also the former Co-Director of Google’s 30 Weeks Program. See more Marianne Aerni Coaching & Facilitation
OUR PARTNER FOR COMMUNICATIONS
Sibylle Zumstein
Communications Strategist
Sibylle Zumstein is a communications strategist with a focus on place branding, location marketing, and content strategy for economic development, tourism initiatives, and public‑sector stakeholders. She brings hands‑on location promotion experience from her work at Switzerland Global Enterprise (S‑GE), where she led global content strategy and the full redesign of the strategic Investor’s Handbook, including modular content architecture, editorial governance, and organization‑wide planning frameworks. She helps organizations across industries translate strategy into action – developing narratives, clarifying roles and processes, and delivering strategic communications and event/project management from concept to execution. Read more: Zumstein Communications
01
OUR CLIENT PROJECTS
National Investment Promotion Agency / Customer Journey Map (Europe)
For a European investment promotion agency, Marianne was commissioned to lead an innovation project to develop a customer journey to understand the needs of life sciences investors. She facilitated a series of virtual workshops with the team across the US and Europe, and conducted interviews with investors. Outcome was an illustrated investor journey map for the team to visualize the journey, new marketing ideas and current pain points were identified.
02
Designed an Innovation Workshop at Economic Development Conference (Savannah, USA)
The Location Lab designed and faciliated a workshop program for the attendees of an annual Economic Development conference in Savannah, Georgia. Aim of the workshop was to introduce the attendees to the innovation methodology "Design Thinking" with tangible applications in economic development in a fast-paced workshop format (2h).
03
Consulting Project for a US Region's Marketing Team / Website Re-Design
The Location Lab helped a US region in their re-design of their website. We guided the marketing team in virtual sessions and an in-person workshop through a series of innovation exercises to identify current pain points and developed solutions / ideas in their re-design and re-branding efforts, bringing clarity and alignment to the team.
Contact us for more client testimonials - We'd love to talk about how we can help your region!
CONTACT US
Thank you for visiting The Location Lab. We cultivate a community approach and we'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts with a blog post or find other like-minded people through The Location Lab network for your next innovation project.
BOOK A WORKSHOP / CONSULTING PROJECT
To inquire about our customized innovation programs or to book us for a speaking engagement / workshop at your upcoming event, please get in touch. Let's innovate together!
The Location Lab LLC is incorporated in VA, USA
Michelle Abboud
Phone: +1 (202) 316 2163
