Thomas Mueller

Chief Experience Officer, Digital, Leadership, Simplification, based in New York

Thomas is often inspired by cycling trips through New York’s Catskill Mountains, where he and his wife spend much of their free time renovating their house and admiring the simple wonders of the constantly changing scenery. The trips are fresh and invigorating—qualities Thomas challenges his teams to embrace in every aspect of their work—from the expanse of robust digital strategies to the intricacies of information architecture to the precision of information design. “Simplicity,” he says, “means making the world more human.”

Since joining Siegel+Gale, Thomas has led engagements with United Airlines Mileage Plus, Du (UAE), American Express, Care Support of America, Nokia, Dollie & Me, LexisNexis and others. Previously, he worked at Martha Stewart Omnimedia, managing all aspects of their customer experience internet initiatives. He was also senior VP creative director at Arnold Worldwide, where his client list included Hershey’s, Royal Caribbean, Fidelity Investments, ESPN Mobile, Amtrak, Spike TV, McDonald’s, GSK and Pfizer.

In 1995 he was hired as one of the first design directors at Razorfish, where he created early exploratory digital work that’s now housed at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. In his nine years with the firm he served a variety of roles—creative director in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, VP of User Experience for North America and executive creative director—and developed marketing campaigns and websites for the likes of AOL, Cartier, CBS, Charles Schwab, Disney, eBay, Ford Motor Company, Giorgio Armani, HBO, New York Public Library, Sharp Electronics, Sony and Time Warner.

Before that, he worked with Praxis Design in Los Angeles on projects for the Getty Museum, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the American Film Institute and the Art Center College of Design.

Thomas holds a BFA in communications design from Fachhochschule München in Germany, an MFA in media design from the Art Center College of Design and a certificate from the Harvard Business School’s Business Perspectives for Design Leaders program. He has also contributed to publications like the Wall Street Journal and Forrester Research Reports, and his many awards include the New Media Invasion Gold Award, Cannes Silver Cyber Lion, Art Directors Club NY, The One Show, Webby, WebAwards and DesignInteract.