As president of frog design, Doreen Lorenzo drives company strategy and oversees worldwide operations. During her ten years with frog, Doreen has been instrumental in re-structuring the company, taking it from a traditional design boutique to becoming one of the world’s foremost strategic-creative consulting firms, securing broad-based arrangements with Fortune 500 clients including General Electric and Hewlett-Packard.
Prior to joining frog, Doreen was director of marketing communications and Internet marketing for Power Computing, where she built an online marketing division that brought in millions of dollars a day in product sales – long before Internet retailing was commonplace. Previously, she was a communications consultant in the Bay Area, where she worked with a variety of blue-chip clients.
A frequent resource to various business publications, Doreen has been featured on ABC Now, Bloomberg Radio, Fast Company, and the New York Times, among others.
As Chief Creative Officer, Mark Rolston is responsible for driving frog’s global creative vision. Working closely with the creative leadership team, Mark orchestrates teams of strategists, technologists, designers, information architects, analysts, and others to produce groundbreaking work for Fortune 500 clientele.
An early web pioneer, Mark co-founded frog’s digital media group in 1996, working with clients to leverage emerging technologies and setting the tone for user interface design and e-commerce platforms. He drove the creation of dell.com, marking the birth of the most profitable website on the Internet, and crafted the digital experience for i2, Microsoft, SAP, and Sun Microsystems, among others. Today, Mark focuses on the intersection of product, digital, and strategic design, pushing clients to offer truly convergent user experiences.
Mark’s client roster has featured many of the world’s largest brands, including Disney, Ford, GE, HP, Microsoft and Yahoo!. He is an internationally recognized expert on digital media, user interface design, e-commerce, and mobile applications, and has been widely quoted in the press, including Business Week, Fast Company, The New York Times, Technology Review, PC Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.
As Chief Operating Officer, Kate Swann is responsible for frog design’s continued operational success. By identifying and cultivating the processes, philosophies, and infrastructure that support effective design, she helps drive value into the company’s every project, ensuring client satisfaction and operational success.
Kate’s previous experience includes: Avalanche, an early interactive design agency later sold to Razorfish; Organic, a design consultancy whose New York office grow from 20 to 300 employees during Kate’s tenure; and Fry, an e-commerce consultancy where she worked with clients such as Godiva and Graco Children's Products.
Kate has an MA in performance studies from NYU and a BA from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
As Chief Development Officer, Mark Gauger has managed frog design’s Client Services group for the past five years, playing a lead role in transforming frog into one of the world’s premier creative consultancies. Charged with establishing meaningful and lasting relationships with Fortune 500 companies, Mark has traveled extensively to consult with leading executives around the world on the appropriate role and impact of innovation and strategic design inside their businesses. Prior to frog, he was the SVP and GM of the Global Services division of Parametric Technology.
Trained as a product designer, Mark has focused his professional career on the creation of competitive advantage through product development. He has a BS and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
As Chief Technology Officer, Meng leads frog design’s global technology team, overseeing key programs that involve significant software development or strategic technology incubation.
Prior to joining frog, Meng worked as the chief architect and CTO for Solomio Corp., which he helped sell to Openwave. This work involved 6 years of creating rich voice and data services for GSM carriers involving fixed-mobile convergence, mobile internet, and personalization algorithms applied to mobile phone applications. Before that, Meng worked as a software engineering director & chief architect at Vignette where he built and ran the Globalization consulting practice and led successful Fortune 500 Content Management, and Personalization engagements. He was also a member of the CTO office at Vignette. Early in his career he worked as a senior software engineer with IBM's Collaborative Systems Research team. Meng has 15 years of software engineering and consulting experience in the web services, online advertising, PC applications, multimedia, and mobile communications domains.
Meng holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, a master’s degree in Software Systems Engineering, and has had executive education in General Management.
As Senior Vice President, Collin Cole ensures intensive collaboration between frog design’s strategic design teams and technology developers worldwide. He supports frog’s expansion into new markets throughout the US and Europe, and works extensively with Fortune 500 and global clientele to ensure the highest quality, efficiency, and profitability in frog’s corporate solutions.
In 1996, Collin co-founded frog’s digital media group, leading the company in its integration of hardware and software design to bring more innovative products to market. This group has since grown to take on projects across the entire spectrum of digital platforms, including web, software, mobile devices, consumer electronics, and other emerging technologies. Past clients include AT&T, Cisco, Disney, GE, HP, MTV, and Yahoo!
Over the last 20 years, Collin has worked as a designer, creative director, technology manager, and project lead. He has been in senior management and business-focused roles across the US and Europe.
As Vice President, Global Delivery, Christian leads the program management team at frog.
Prior to joining frog design, Christian was Executive Director, User Experience Design in the eCommerce group at AT&T, where he led the user experience, design, and content management teams for att.com, one of the most visited and successful telecommunications websites in the US. Christian has held pervious leadership positions in user experience and program management at consulting firms Sapient and Scient. He is also an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University where he created and teaches courses in human computer interaction.
Christian has a B.A. from Purdue University in Visual Communication Design, and a M.S. for Northwestern University in Systems Strategy and Management.
Robert Fabricant is the Vice President of Creative for frog design where he leads frog's efforts to expand the impact of design into new markets and industries. An expert in design for social innovation, Robert is lead partner in Project Masiluleke, an initiative that harnesses the power of mobile technology to combat the world's worst HIV and AIDS epidemic in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Robert is an adjunct professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where he teaches a foundation course in Interaction Design. In 2009, he joined the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York and is a faculty member of the Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellowship Program. A regular speaker at conferences and events, Robert recently gave a keynote speech at the 2009 IxDA Interaction Conference. His work has been featured in a wide variety of publications, including I.D. Magazine , The Wall Street Journal , and Wired and he is a guest blogger for Fast Company .
As Vice President of Human Resources, Eric leads frog design’s global human resources group, developing comprehensive programs that promote frog’s mission as a human centered organization.
Prior to joining frog in our San Francisco studio, Eric worked for Intuit as the Vice President of Talent Development and People Experience. He has a PhD in Psychology and was the owner of a psychological services company in Madison, Wisconsin, before moving to the Bay Area.
As Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Tim Leberecht oversees frog design’s global corporate marketing, including brand management, marketing communications, lead generation, and public relations. Before joining frog in 2006, Tim was the head of corporate communications with Mindjet Corporation, a provider of enterprise productivity software. Prior to Mindjet, he served as press chief for the Athens 2004 International Olympic Torch Relay, in marketing communications for Deutsche Telekom, and in an interactive marketing agency in Berlin. He started his professional career as a copywriter.
A frequent resource to various media, Tim has extensively written about marketing, innovation, and design in business and academic publications, and spoken at conferences worldwide. He is a member of the CNET and Pop!Tech blog networks and a member of the advisory board of Design Ignites Change.
Tim holds a master's degree in applied cultural sciences from the University of Luneburg in Germany and a master's degree in communication management from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
As Vice President of Finance, Sally Dang leads frog design’s global financial and accounting team. Sally and her team provide accurate, timely, and transparent financial reporting to aid in business decisions and planning. Sally also ensures audit and tax compliance are met across all frog entities via standardized internal controls, globalized accounting policies, and financial reporting in accordance with US GAAP. Before joining frog in 2005, Sally worked for both public and private companies, including financial management positions at Cisco Systems, Windriver Systems, Ernst & Young, and Arcot System, Inc. Sally holds CPA and BS degrees from UC Berkeley.
As Executive Creative Director of Software and Hardware Convergence, Tjeerd Hoek leads frog’s design teams in establishing seamless integration between digital and physical platforms.
Before coming to frog, Tjeerd was at Microsoft, where he served as the director of user experience design for Microsoft Windows and, most recently, Windows Vista. He has developed user interfaces for some of the most widely used products and platforms in the world, including Office ‘97, Office 2000, and Office XP. He was also responsible for the user experience design of MSN, including key applications such as the MSN Premium Service client, MSN Messenger, and MSN Email.
Tjeerd has received multiple user interface patents, and is a leader in the definition of user experience guidelines. He received an M.A. in Industrial Design Engineering, cum laude, from Delft University of Technology.
As Executive Creative Director of Industrial Design, Paul Bradley drives the strategic impact of frog design’s global product development practice, working closely with the creative leadership to foster the company’s expertise in product design. He collaborates closely with frog’s strategy and software groups to develop creative solutions for clients across the US, Europe, and Asia.
Prior to frog, Paul spent 16 years with IDEO, where he led the company’s global industrial design practice and was responsible for developing innovative products for clients including Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, and Nike. He was instrumental in building IDEO’s reputation as one of the world’s leading industrial design firms. Recognized for his pioneering work on the first mouse for Microsoft, Paul has won numerous design awards from IDSA and I.D. Magazine. His work on Logitech’s 3D mouse is part of the Museum of Modern Art’s Permanent Collection.
As Executive Creative Director, Cees van Dok is responsible for the creative direction and project management of frog design’s work throughout Europe, including Digital Media Design, Product Design, and Technology. Major clients include HP, Lawson, Nero, Phonak, SAP, and Vodafone.
Cees has over twelve years of experience in the software industry, with a focus on user experience design. Prior to joining frog design, he worked for six years at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, where he worked as product designer on the consumer software applications MSN Messenger and MSN Explorer. In 2003, he moved on to become design manager in the Microsoft Windows User Experience design team, focusing primarily on concept development and product design of Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.
Before Microsoft he worked at iMedia, a Dutch interaction design agency that serves the leading Dutch telephone operator, KPN Telecom, among others.
Cees holds a Master of Science degree from the Delft University of Technology, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.
Hartmut Esslinger is the founder and longtime co-CEO of frog design, and now serves as strategic and creative advisor to the company under the title of frog fellow. His vision has defined frog and his work has helped to develop the modern consumer aesthetic, through revolutionary products like the Sony Trinitron and Apple Macintosh computer.
When Hartmut founded frog design in his native Germany in 1969, his unique cultural style sparked a design revolution, pushing industry leaders to address users’ functional and emotional needs simultaneously. This approach formed the cornerstone of frog design, and continues to guide our work today. In 1996, Hartmut led frog through the development of a digital media group, extending our product design prowess into the virtual world, and on into higher-level business strategy. His world-class client list includes Acer, Acura/Honda, AT&T, CitiCorp, Discovery Channel, Disney, IBM, Kaltenbach & Voigt, Karstadt, Kodak, Louis Vuitton, Motorola, NEC, Packard Bell, Rosenthal, Siemens, Sun Microsystems, Swatch, Virgin Records, Yamaha and Zeiss— to name only a few.
Hartmut Esslinger is Founding Professor of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany, has an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Parson School of Design, University of New York, and is an Honorary Member of the Design Academy of Mexico. In 1992, he received the Raymond Loewy Lifetime Achievement Award. Concurrent to the award was the release of the book Hartmut Esslinger and frogdesign (Steidl Verlag, Goettingen, 1992) and an exhibit about frog at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg, Germany. Hartmut's work has been lauded internationally and incorporated into the design collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institute, and Neue Sammlung, Munich.
