Andy Starr
Managing Partner

Andy is an award-winning brand architect and strategic sparring partner for business leaders.

A musician and recovering law student, he teaches MBA candidates in the EU, is a co-founder of an LA-based public safety tech brand, and splits his time between the US and Austria.

No business-changing whiteboard books. Yet. But he did do a Top-1% TEDx talk, so that has to count for something...

  • 5 a.m.

  • Nutella

  • Bohemian Rhapsody (Muppet Version)

  • Bohemian Rhapsody.
    The original LP.
    Autographed.
    Yes, including Freddie.

  • Superman

  • James Taylor

  • A Pope

  • Julius Caesar + Indiana Jones + Han Solo

  • I’m a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

  • FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

  • I’m in a Genesis/Phil Collins mood lately…

  • Will get me arrested. Or killed. Or both.

  • I’ll eat spaghettio’s cold. Out of the can.
    And I’ll smile proudly while I do it.

  • I’m a TEDx “Editor’s Pick” — Top 1% of 50,000+ global TEDx talks per year.
    Better than I ever did in school.

  • To help you design designful businesses

Marty Neumeier
Managing Partner

Marty's books —including ZAG, named one of the “Top Hundred Business Books of All Time,” THE DESIGNFUL COMPANY, and the groundbreaking THE BRAND GAP—are required reading for anyone serious about brand and business design.

He founded Critique magazine, the first journal about design thinking. Clients have included Apple, Adobe, Google, and Microsoft .

  • Michael Clayton

  • Chimes of Freedom (Bob Dylan)

  • Fuckin’-A

  • Hans Gruber from Die Hard

  • Anything from Poldo e Gianna (Rome)

  • Red-green (I’m red-green color blind)

  • The Uncalled Four

  • The first time I met Steve Jobs

  • The Elements of Style (Strunk & White)

  • I came in second for a part in The Monkees

  • On the job at Domingo’s Italian Grocery (think Moonstruck)

  • Losing millions on Critique magazine

  • I’m the guy behind the famous “DON’T READ THIS SIGN” in LA, featured in Life magazine in 1964. Yes, seriously.

  • I have the same wife after 55 years of this stuff…

  • To teach you what not to do

Sabine Friesser
Managing Partner

Sabine is a dangerous strategist and CMO who has steered global B2B and B2C companies for 18+ years.

She is a professor of branding and marketing, in both undergraduate and MBA programs, at multiple EU universities, and a trusted counselor to companies across a spectrum of categories, realizing revenues in the billions of Euros.

And, she’s a Top-1% TEDx speaker too.

  • Chocolate!

  • German, English, Italian, and Chocolate…

  • Chocolate…

  • Shit (I’m almost out of chocolate)

  • Chocolate

  • Parallel parking. And rules. I really hate rules.

  • Raymond Reddington from The Blacklist

  • of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels

  • Bullshit me. It won’t work out well for you.

  • Formula 1—the strategies, not the celebrities.

  • Heroes by David Bowie

  • My mom’s diaries from when I was born to when I turned 18

  • Miss Sloane

  • My dad

  • Because Marty and Andy insisted…