Siegel+Gale = leadership «

Alan Siegel Founder, CEO, Chairman

Founder and Chairman

Over the past three decades, Alan Siegel has become one of the best-known figures in the branding business. He has achieved the stature of both pillar of the establishment and provocative iconoclast, while building a leading brand consultancy, Siegel+Gale, devoted to positioning global companies for competitive success.

In the 1970s, Alan pioneered the practice of simplification, bringing clarity to such daunting documents as insurance policies, bank loan notes, mutual fund prospectuses, and all types of government communications. During the 1980s he popularized the concept of “brand voice.” And, in the 1990s, his firm championed the Internet as a powerful expression of brand strategy. In all he does, Alan is known for the plain speaking he demands of clients and for the excellence in individual and organizational communications that his firm has come to embody.

Alan pioneered the development of plain English for complex legal documents for business and government in the 1970s and is considered one of the country’s leading authorities on business communications. Alan was director of a project for the Internal Revenue Service to simplify U.S. individual income tax forms; he has written extensively on this subject for the New York Times, Across the Board, and the National Law Journal and has appeared nationally on Today, The McNeil-Lehrer Report, and the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.

One of the first graduates of the management training program at Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, a leading advertising agency, Alan was a senior account executive, served as secretary for the agency’s New Products Development Group, and helped establish the Communications Design Center, which handled corporate identity, packaging, and sales promotion projects. He subsequently held executive posts at Ruder Finn, public relations consultants, and Sandgren & Murtha, marketing and design consultants.

Alan served as president of the Advisory Council for the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University for six years. He was an adjunct associate professor of law at Fordham University Law School for seven years, where he developed an innovative legal drafting course, “Writing Contracts in Plain English.” He served as an adjunct associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also conducted research, and was a founder and co-director of the Communications Design Center. Alan served on the executive committee of the Document Design Project, which was funded by the National Institute of Education, a federal research agency. The National Endowment for the Arts appointed him to its Advisory Panel on Federal Graphic Design, and he has served on the editorial board of The Design Management Review since it was founded in 1989.

A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Alan also attended New York University Law School, the School of Visual Arts, and Alexei Brodovich’s Design Laboratory.

Currently, Alan serves on the boards of the Museum of Arts and Design, the American Theater Wing, where he is a Tony voter, The Authors Guild Foundation, Inc., the Nathaniel Wharton Foundation at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, Business for Diplomatic Action, and Aperture Foundation. Alan previously served on the boards of the European Chamber of Commerce in the United States, the Museum of Modern Art Photography Committee, the International Center of Photography, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), the Design Management Institute, and Girls Inc. (formerly the Girls Clubs of America).

Alan is the author of an extensive series of personal guides for The Wall Street Journal, including the bestseller, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money and Markets (Lightbulb Press), as well as Writing Contracts in Plain English (West Publishing) and Simplified Consumer Credit Forms (Warren Gorham & Lamont). He is also the author of One Man’s Eye: Photographs from the Alan Siegel Collection, which was published by Harry N. Abrams in October 2000, and Step Right This Way: The Photographs of Edward J. Kelty, published by Barnes & Noble in October 2002.

In December 2006, Jorge Pinto Books published Alan Siegel on Branding and Clear Communications by Louis J. Slovinsky as part of its Working Biographies series.

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Howard Belk Co-President, Chief Creative Officer

Co-President and CEO, Chief Creative Officer

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As co-president and CEO of Siegel+Gale, Howard shares responsibility for setting direction and managing the overall performance of the firm with partner David Srere. Slightly more fun than counting and allotting the corporate coins, however, is his role as chief creative officer and anointed High Priest of Unorthodoxy. It is Howard’s job to challenge S+G’s corporate branding, advertising, interactive and simplification creative teams to live up to and give fresh expression to the credo of our founder Alan Siegel - Simple is Smart. At Siegel+Gale, simple means brand expressions that are clear, fresh, honest, useful and inspiring.

Co-President and CEO, Chief Strategy Officer

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As co-president and CEO of Siegel+Gale, David shares responsibility for setting direction and managing the overall performance of the firm with partner Howard Belk. David is also S+G’s chief strategy officer, overseeing brand strategy and architecture, research, and project management, as well as all strategic activity in the customer experience, simplification, and interactive practices.

Managing Director, West Coast

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As Managing Director, Jason is responsible for Siegel+Gale’s operations on the West Coast, which includes offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In his role, Jason oversees all client relationships, business development, and strategic branding programs for Siegel+Gale across the Western United States. Key clients he has worked with include Baylor Healthcare, Capital Research, Demand Media, Experian, Lexus, Lifescan, Microsoft, Nestle, Qualcomm, Shell, Sony PlayStation, Southern California Edison, and Yahoo!

Managing Director, London

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Within days of joining Siegel+Gale London in June 2008 as managing director, Fred Burt was presenting work to the office’s largest client. The success of this presentation speaks to Fred’s abilities to achieve fast mastery of his subject‚ perhaps unsurprising from an Oxford-educated master of Anglo-Saxon literature. But this success also speaks to the depth of confidence he inspires in the people who work with him at the London office, and, at least as important, the people who coaxed him from Interbrand. And you can speak with him, anytime, about Beowulf.

Tom Blackett

Non-Executive Chairman

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Tom Blackett serves as non-executive chairman in Siegel+Gale’s London office. Throughout his career, Tom has worked with major domestic and international brand owners in a wide variety of industries. In addition to his current advisory role he acts as an expert witness in legal disputes relating to brands, and has appeared in the High Court on several occasions.

Prior to joining Siegel+Gale, Tom was group deputy chairman of Interbrand. He spent 25 years with the company working in all areas of corporate and product brand development for clients throughout the world. When Tom joined Interbrand it was a ’boutique’ name development business of thirty employees with offices in London, Paris, and New York. In the following years Interbrand expanded, offering brand strategy advice, graphic design, and the development of a methodology for valuing brands. By the time Tom left Interbrand in March 2008, the company had 1,200 employees and 32 offices in 22 countries.

Mr. Blackett has also worked at Inbucon Management Consultants as research director in their marketing consultancy division. This followed five years with Research International – then Unilever’s market research subsidiary – and three years with Attwood Statistics, another leading market research firm.

Tom speaks frequently at major international conferences on branding and marketing. He has also written many papers and articles on branding including:

1985: ‘Branding, a Key Marketing Tool’ (Chapter author)
1992: ‘Brands – an International Review by Interbrand’ (Contributor)
1993: ‘Brand Valuation’ (Chapter author)
1996: ‘The World’s Greatest Brands’ (Contributor)
1997: ‘Trademarks’ (Chapter author)
1998: ‘Brands: The New Wealth Creators’ (Contributor)
1999: ‘Co-Branding: The Science of Alliance’ (Co-editor and chapter author)
2001: ‘Brand Medicine – The Role of Brands in the Pharmaceutical Industry’ (Co-editor and chapter author)
2003: ‘Brands and Branding’ (Chapter author)
2008: ‘Brands and Branding’. Second edition. (Chapter author)

Tom lives in Surrey with his wife ‘B’ (Bridget), a senior nursing sister. He has two boys, both of whom are in Edinburgh. The younger is in his final year at Edinburgh University; and the older works in marketing for Heineken at their UK subsidiary, Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Tom rows with a group of elderly oarsmen at London Rowing Club, and every Sunday puffs past Siegel+Gale’s London office which overlooks the River Thames.

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Ulf-Brün Drechsel

Executive Director

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A global citizen, Ulf-Brün brings over 20 years of experience in publishing, advertising, marketing, brand identity and design, and management consulting to his position as executive director, representing Siegel+Gale out of Hamburg.

Managing Director, Dubai

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In Tarek Sultani’s ever-widening circle of Middle Eastern business contacts, Alan Siegel’s long and legendary career and the premier strategic and branding consultancy he’s shepherded across forty successful years is the story that everyone likes to hear. In Dubai, and throughout the region, the strong story resonates across cultures; it is respected and has been perfected over millennia.

General Manager, Shanghai

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Eric brings global branding experience and a passion for China to oversee our strategy practice in Shanghai. In his role, Eric leads a team of strategists and analysts in applying our forty years of branding innovation, coupled with a deep understanding of Chinese consumer culture, to help both global and local brands thrive in this dynamic, emerging market.

Previously, Eric was a senior strategist at Siegel+Gale Los Angeles where he led engagements for clients including Yahoo!, Microsoft, Sony PlayStation, Freescale Semiconductor, Symantec, Demand Media, TIBCO Software, Agility, the Port of Long Beach and Qatar Telecom. Since joining Siegel+Gale, Eric has managed client assignments in the US, Middle East and Asia.