We are a distributed curated network of the best designers, strategists, technologists, and creatives in the world, all of whom share a belief that technology should be harnessed not for efficiency but for the benefit of people, society and the environment.
Discover a better way of workingCrippling overheads and entrenched legacy structures make it hard for talent to do their best work, difficult for clients to get value and impossible for agencies themselves to make money.
Group of Humans is a distributed elite network of the best designers, strategists and creatives in the world, all of whom share a belief that technology should be harnessed not for efficiency but for the benefit of people, society and the environment.
This shared vision informs the clients we chose to work with, meaning we only do the work we believe in. And with close to zero overheads, we have a better deal for talent and for clients.
Because technological progress to date has focussed on efficiency and the removal of humans from industry. We believe designers, thinkers and strategists must guide technology disruption towards a more human future.
Products and services which work with and for society. We favour ideas which generate value without denigrating the environment or the people who depend on it.
Through an understanding of culture, human history and the role of business in society, our network of designers, thinkers and strategists empower our clients to secure a purpose and sustainable future for their business.
Consultants, technologists, designers and creatives tend to approach problems with a specific lens. We combine diverse perspectives to bring high quality products and services to market more quickly. We call this holistic consulting. It comprises of five core overlapping areas.
In close cooperation with business leaders we tailor programs to help to better understand customers, generate and test ideas whilst ensuring connectedness with the overall business strategy.
An efficient and effective generation of ideas through a human centered design process that leads to new products. Whether we are teaching a team how to fish or delivering for a specific program we know what it takes to create better digital products, physical products and complete ecosystems.
We help you understand. plan and organise your businesses resources and touchpoints to improve the front and back office experiences for your people and your customers.
Creating from scratch or reimagining brands, with a specific lens for purpose designed to nourish people, society and the planet.
Delivering communications strategies and campaigns which are intrinsically linked to brand purpose and business strategy.
We don’t pitch, because pitches are a waste of your time and our money. Instead we can start working with your teams immediately for a relatively low investment. This allows clients to see how we integrate, and how quickly we can produce results. We only start projects with clients who have a design team. It’s only by combining our talent with yours that we can make a sustainable long term difference to your business.
Rob has dedicated his career to understanding design and its ability to influence and improve how businesses work. His values lie at the heart of the teams he has curated; loyalty, authenticity and courage. Rob founded Group of Humans, his third design focussed company, to guide the global technology disruption towards a more human future.
Chris is a creative leader and branding expert with twenty years of experience working for big brands globally. Passionate about how to fix the social and environmental problems we face, Chris believes it’s our collective duty to harness technology in the most positive ways possible. He is proud to say the ex Prime Minister of the UK David Cameron once described him as ‘terrifying’.
A former travel writer and editor in France, Héloïse fell into Digital a bit by accident when she was asked to lead the first Penguin Digital programme. From there, she has held a variety of roles across Technology, Digital Transformation, Product and Customer Experience, in Media, Publishing, Education and FinTech.
Passionate about sparking change in mindset, and enabling people to be their own agents of change, she coaches teams on organisational culture, leadership and ways of working, and leads on Customer experience at Group of Humans.
Sonja is a strategist, change agent and problem solver, passionate about transforming businesses by focusing on growth, innovation, cultural change and digital transformation. She strongly believes in the power of community, doing meaningful and impactful work, learning and helping each other become the best versions of ourselves.
Sonja is also passionate about empowering women, advising and mentoring executives as they transition in their careers, and innovation and transformation leaders fighting status quo in their organizations.
Gretchen consults with clients to inform their product strategy and improve team collaboration skills. She spent the first part of her career in design consulting for firms like frog design, Cooper, and LUNAR. Recently, she was head of design at PG&E, California’s largest energy company. Previously, she led the design of the hardware and software of a next-generation surgical system and was VP of Product at GreatSchools.org.
Her past clients include Virgin Records, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, and Intel. Gretchen is a Bay Area native who left only long enough to get a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in History & Literature.
Innovator, artist, protagonist, activist, and positive provocateur, Maria has pursued a vision of intelligent, elegant, people-centered design throughout her professional life. Her grasp of the pragmatic, the authentic, and the essential have kept her at the forefront of design and business for over 30 years.
Under Maria’s leadership, Hot Studio, the award-winning experience design firm she founded in 1997, grew into a full-service creative agency with an impressive list of Fortune 500 clients. In 2013, Facebook acquired the talent behind Hot Studio, where Maria worked as a Director of Product Design. From 2015 to 2017, Maria led a global team of designers as Autodesk’s first VP of Experience Design.
Maria’s third book, Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design, is available in several languages. She has spoken at conferences all over the world. Maria serves on several Boards and is a trustee at California College of the Arts.
Brian has pursued a career as engineer, writer and designer, with over twenty years focused on continuously learning how to deliver experiences that work for organisations and humans. He has founded and run digital agencies in Boston and London, helped organisations to build or re-structure customer experience teams, and designed digital products and services for start-ups to Enterprise.
Brian is passionate about designing and delivering things that people love to use, and finding simple ways to unpick complexity in products, services and organisational structures, enabling humans to feel empowered and valued.
Alex has twenty years of experience working on design projects, ranging from branding and animation to data visualization and interface design. He started his career at Razorfish at the beginning of the first web boom. Since then, he has worked with clients ranging from software startups to major television networks, athletics brands to international educational institutions.
A professor at the Pratt Institute of the Arts, Alex developed course work aimed at helping students to uncover their own theories of design and to develop strategies for the application of those theories beyond the traditional boundaries of the field. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Artist Mary Blakemore and their two daughters.
We have an excellent network of partners and associates, who are on standby, ready to lend a helping hand when our projects require their specialist skills and services.
For us, being a connected company doesn’t mean we’ve all got a smart phone. In fact some of us don’t. Connectivity is the fundamental belief that everything in the Universe is connected. Industrialisation and cult of the individual have broken that connection.
We use our technology platform to manage our projects across multiple territories and time zones. But beyond that, we believe businesses are connected to people, to society and the environment.
If this isn't at the heart of how your company operates, you won't just be out of business, we could all be out of existence. The good news is that businesses and their customers are moving this way already.