Tim Leberecht

Marketer and author, San Francisco

As chief marketing officer of NBBJ, Tim Leberecht helps spark and nurture new thinking (and great architecture and design) for companies around the world. NBBJ is a leading global architecture and design firm that has helped companies and organizations create innovative places. From top-performing world headquarters – including Reebok, Starbucks and Telenor – to state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, NBBJ has designed communities, buildings, products, environments, and digital experiences that enhance people’s lives. Founded in 1943, NBBJ has nine offices worldwide, including Beijing, Boston, Columbus, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Shanghai. Clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Boeing, Calit2, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, Microsoft, Reebok, Salk, Samsung, Starbucks, Telenor, and Wellcome Trust. Prior to his role at NBBJ, Leberecht was the chief marketing officer of Frog, a global design and innovation firm that has developed and brought to market product and service innovations for Apple, AT&T, BMW, Disney, GE, HP, Intel, SAP, Siemens, Sony, and many other Fortune 500 brands. Between October 2010 and 2012, Leberecht also led the marketing of Frog’s parent company, the Aricent Group, overseeing a team in India, China, Germany, and the US. Leberecht is the founder and publisher of the award-winning design mind print and online magazine, the curator of The Meaning of Business publication series, and the founder and producer of the Reinvent Business hackathon. Leberecht serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Values and on the Advisory Committee for The H(app)athon Project.

An avid writer and speaker, Tim Leberecht is called on as a frequent resource to various media. He writes the iPlot blog, and his thoughts on business and society have appeared in outlets such as CNET, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, MIX, Rotman Magazine, The European, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Wired, and the World Economic Forum blog. He is often quoted in articles on marketing, innovation, and design including web sites such as BrandWeek, Mashable, and PSFK. His TED Talk on “3 Ways to (Usefully) Lose Control of Your Brand” was featured on the TED.com homepage in October 2012 and has garnered more than 400,000 views to date. Leberecht is also a sought-after conference/public speaker and has spoken at venues including TED University, DLD Tel Aviv, Next, Re:Publica, Futurist CMO Summit, i7 Innovation Summit, and Carnegie Mellon University. Leberecht holds a masters’ degree in cultural studies from the University of Luneburg in Germany and a masters’ degree in communication management from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Leberecht was born and raised in Germany before moving to the US in 2003.