Steve Brown

Steve has been designing since he was a little kid, and now he brings his far-reaching interests and experience as a global design leader to Mad*Pow.

Once Steve got hooked on design, nothing could stop him. He started Fiori, an industrial design and product development firm, where he was involved in designing more than 100 consumer and technology products. Later, as the Global Head of Design at Nortel, he established his focus on digital and user experiences. He went on to create Veux Labs, a consultancy focused on building mobile apps for connected hardware products. With the Veux Labs team, he built a mobile app for Lightspeed Aviation’s PFX Noise Cancelling Headset. The app won a CES Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2015, and in one of his coolest client moments to date, the CEO called to personally thank him and his team.

Whether he’s designing hardware or a non-graphical user interface, you’ll never find Steve building something just because he can. His first step is finding real, unmet user needs as the basis for product innovation or refinement. From there, his focus is on finding the right level of product intelligence balanced by simplicity.

Steve pushes himself to master new techniques in the kitchen. He likes to try cooking Mediterranean and Middle Eastern foods that go a little outside his comfort zone. In case of “spectacular flameouts”—he’s had a few—there’s always takeout.