The Curiate team was founded by Robb Ziegler and Deb Mrazek with the goal of helping others grow and thrive with Design Value, Design Thinking and Creative Leadership. As design professionals with decades of experience, Robb and Deb have a keen interest in strategy, methodology and teaching. Helping organizations and individuals grow with emerging methods in design and innovation gives them tremendous joy.
Deb Mrazek
Founding Partner
With over 30 years of experience creating and driving design strategy, Deb strives to leverage the intersection of customer-value, business-benefits and corporate capabilities. Through a combination of theory and practice, coaching and doing, she has helped institutes from startups to Fortune 100s, governments and NGOs develop user-centered strategies and work with teams to integrate these strategies into organizations’ overall plans of record. As a systems thinker, Deb has developed an array of frameworks, tools and platforms to leverage the power of design and systems thinking at team, group, organizational and global levels. She is considered a leading authority on Design Value. Deb holds an M.S. in Industrial Engineering and Human Factors and a B.S.E. in
System Engineering.
Robb Ziegler
Founding Partner
Robb loves creating new value Between Products and People.® Whether via strategy, marketing insights, or industrial design, Robb has helped global companies envision the future of brand innovation and design for the past 25 years. As the founder of an award-winning consultancy, Robb has helped clients generate billions of dollars of new revenue through applied design thinking. He is a named inventor on over twenty patents for product, software and process innovations. Robb has also served as a guest lecturer and faculty at leading universities around the world, including Carnegie Mellon, Parsons The New School, and Tsinghua University. He explores the intersection of design, value, and human values and how these relate to creative leadership. Robb holds a Strategic Design MBA and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design.
Thomas Lockwood, PhD
Affiliate Partner
Tom has a Ph.D. in Design Management and is recognized as a thought leader at integrating design and innovation practice into business, and building great design and UX organizations. He has produced over 20 design leadership conferences, has lectured and led workshops around the world, and is a design adviser to countries and companies. Tom is the author of five books on design thinking, design strategy, and design management, including the soon to be released book with organizational psychologist Edgar Papke titled Innovation by Design, which demonstrates how to use design thinking to build cultures of innovation. Tom is the founding partner of Lockwood Resource, an international consulting and recruiting firm specializing in design leadership. Previously, he was the president of Design Management Institute (dmi).
Sam Lucente
Associate Partner
Working at the intersection of design, innovation and customer experience, Sam Lucente brings proven world-class design approaches to bear on complex problems for society, organizations and the design profession at large. He is a former VP of Design at HP Worldwide, Netscape UX Director, and IBM ThinkPad design lead. Sam is a frequent speaker and lecturer at universities, conferences, and design symposium and is a leading design expert recognized by Fast Company's Masters of Design, BusinessWeek's Champions of Innovation, and the IDEA Awards. His work is in the permanent collection at the New York MoMA, SFMOMA, and the the Smithsonian National Design Museum. Sam holds overs 35 patents. He graduated magna cum laude from the College of Design, Architecture, and Art at the University of Cincinnati.