The Curiate team was founded by Robb Ziegler and Deb Mrazek with the goal of helping others grow and thrive. As professionals with decades of experience, our team has a keen interest in strategy, culture, methodology and teaching. Helping organizations and individuals grow with emerging methods in design and innovation brings us 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
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 design thinking. He is a named inventor on over twenty patents for product, software and process innovations. Robb especially loves teaching and enabling ingenuity in people and teams. He mentors and invests in startups. He has served as a guest lecturer and faculty at leading universities around the world, including Carnegie Mellon, Parsons The New School, and Tsinghua University. Robb consistently explores the intersection of creativity, value, and human values and how these relate to leadership and innovation. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design and a Strategic Design MBA.
Meredith Dixon
SENIOR Partner
Meredith uses strategic design, creativity, and empathy to transform business operations, care delivery, and consumer experiences in the health and wellness industry with accountability for top line revenue growth and profitability. For 25 years as a healthcare leader, operator, designer, and clinician her practice has centered on the holistic needs of the “customer,” that can be an employee, patient, member, or partner designing and delivering products and services in a human-centered way. She spent 18 years at CVS Health MinuteClinic, the largest retail health ambulatory care practice in the US, in a variety of executive roles advancing the care team model, leading & empowering high performing teams to deliver accessible, high-quality, and cost effective care to millions of health consumers. She thrives on connecting emergent ideas via people, process, and technology to deliver operational efficiencies & metric driven results in start-up, private, and public organizations. Meredith holds a M.S. in Nursing; is a Primary Care Nurse Practitioner; is Board Certified in Family Practice; holds a B.S. in Nursing and Psychology; and holds an MBA in Strategic Design.
Andréa LeGare
Partner
Andréa LeGare is a seasoned, results-driven leader with experience across tech, manufacturing, travel, higher education, software, healthcare, and automotive industries. She spent 18 years at Intel Corporation spearheading innovative new ventures and working with all company leadership levels as Chief of Staff to the CPO. Working at the intersection of strategic business-acumen and intuitive emotional intelligence, Andréa focuses on establishing authentic client relationships that infuse people-centered change, expediting desired business outcomes. Andréa has served as faculty in Portland State University’s School of Business, where she taught leadership courses and continues to mentor MBA students. Andréa has a BA in Business Administration and Marketing from Portland State University and an MBA from the University of Oregon.
Beau Martin
ASSOCIATE Partner
Beau helps global companies make smart data-based market and strategic decisions. He’s been a leading market modeler for consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, technology, financial, and consulting firms around the world. Beau leverages discrete choice analysis, artificial intelligence/machine learning, text mining, statistical effect estimation and Bayesian analytics to simplify complex business problems. Beau started his career in process reengineering at AT&T and later focused on new product development, launches, branding and communications with companies like Intuit and Interbrand. He has spoken at leading universities including Yale, Stanford, LBS and Toronto. Beau graduated Summa Cum Laude from Auburn University with a BA in Economics. He graduated first in his class at Georgia State University with an MS in Decision Sciences.
Ben Olshin
Associate Partner
Benjamin has over 20 years experience in branding and design, organizational development, executive training, and cross-cultural management consulting. He was the founding Director of the Center for the Creative Economy, the Director of the School of Design, and Professor of industrial design, philosophy, and cultural studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Prior to that, Benjamin was the Executive Director of Training and Organizational Development with the global branding firm Landor. He has facility in six languages and has been involved in projects on three continents, in areas including design, communications, and cultural issues in management. Benjamin has a B.A. from Williams College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. Benjamin is also a frequently-invited speaker on the subjects of knowledge transmission, technology and society, and scientific methodology.
Bruce Starcher
Associate Partner
Bruce’s Business Model expertise, broad background and strategic mind are key to making connections and seeing possibilities where others don’t. The diversity and breadth of his background help him get to the heart of business issues quickly and make visible paths to meaningful growth. He is the author of “Business Models for Entrepreneurs: A Practical Guide: How to get beyond Minimum Viable Product and build a business.” Bruce was raised in France, Switzerland and the US. After completing his French Baccalaureate, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a double major in Mathematics and Economics and eventually went on to get an MBA from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management where he graduated with distinction.