Our network includes some of the world’s best designers, writers, and researchers. For project work, we can assemble an ideal team whose members all have their names and reputations on the line doing work they love. We find this produces an excellent result without the overhead costs of a traditional agency.
Founder
Mark Gibson
Mark is a strategist and executive coach who for over 17 years has worked with well-known global businesses and pioneers of positive system change. As the founder of The Next Us, he has worked directly with the leadership teams of Zazzle, Wize Commerce, Omidyar Network, LeapFrog, Apollo Alliance, Art Center College of Design, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Global Kids, Chromatik, Misnomer Dance Theater, and Sundance Channel.
Mark began his career as a grant writer for the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. After a few years at small creative agencies, he eventually became a Director of Program Management at Sapient Corporation, leading large-scale web projects for Walmart.com, Gap, and Cisco Networking Academy. During this time, he also served as the Board President of BAY Positives, the nation’s first peer-run agency for young people living with HIV/AIDS.
In 2002, Mark joined Stone Yamashita Partners as a strategist helping CEOs and executive teams articulate visions for change, build cultures of innovation, and create unique customer experiences. Mark’s clients during his four years at SYPartners included Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, NBC Universal, Lifetime Television, Yahoo!, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
In 2006, Mark started The Next Us to help organizations and individuals achieve breakthrough change. He speaks regularly on business- and community-driven innovation.
Outside of work, Mark finds inspiration in the performing arts. He is a daily meditation practitioner and amateur singer. mark@thenext-us.com
Collaborators
Natalie Linden
Natalie Linden will find the heartbeat of your story. With strategic thinking and creative collaboration as her touchstones, she helps organizations build powerful narratives across every touchpoint, from positioning and messaging to naming, taglines, ad campaigns, websites, social media, packaging, print collateral, speeches – even the occasional poetic stanza. Her expertise also crosses industries, from Silicon Valley giants like Google and Cisco Systems to plucky start-ups like Alter Eco and consumer favorites like Perricone MD and Peet’s Coffee. She has a particular passion for companies who make it their business to leave the world a little better than they found it. www.wordsforrentorsale.com
Andrea Saveri
Andrea is an independent consultant, located in Berkeley, California. She works at the intersection of foresight and strategy helping organizations adapt to a world of unexpected change. For more than 20 years Andrea has worked in Silicon Valley and around the world with businesses, foundations, and public institutions applying insights from futures research and emerging technologies to develop strategy and market opportunities. She currently focuses on the convergence of technologies of cooperation, strategies for collective action and commons building, platforms for enabling resilience, and amplified communities. This nexus of disruption and creativity offers unprecedented opportunity to regenerate community life, flexible institutions, and our capacity for wellbeing. www.andreasaveri.com
