The Curiate team was founded by Robb Ziegler and Deb Mrazek with the goal of helping others grow and thrive with Change by Design, Design Value, Design Thinking and Creative Leadership. As design professionals with decades of experience, our team has a keen interest in strategy, methodology and teaching. Helping organizations and individuals grow with emerging methods in design and innovation gives us 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.
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.
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.
Adam Richardson
Affiliate Partner
Adam strives to use design as a means to improve people's lives in ways large and small. He's worked on physical products, digital ecosystems and services, with companies and organizations across a wide variety of industries and geographies. Most of his career has been in design and innovation consulting, including 10 years in leadership roles at the global consultancy frog design, building up the strategy and user research capabilities there. After frog, he went in-house to work on new product development and customer experience innovation at Financial Engines, a mission-driven fintech firm that helps everyday people with planning for retirement. Adam holds a BFA in Industrial Design with High Distinction from California College of the Arts, and was named in the top 100 most distinguished alumni of the school's first 100 years. He also received an MA in Humanities from University of Chicago.