Design & Innovation Is A Team Sport

Published on July 25, 2016

RKS continues to push the boundaries of innovation, strategy, and design with its newest addition, Carl Fronhofer. Carl is the latest hire to the world class RKS team, taking on the role of Director of Operations. He will contribute to the RKS team and its clients using his unique background in team building and leadership skills.

Carl will provide leadership and mentoring to RKS clients, as well as our skilled team of designers and engineers. Carl comes to RKS with over a decade of experience at the highest level of collegiate athletics.

Ravi Sawhney, CEO of RKS says, “Carl’s ability to connect team members with their potential is what excites me the most about having him as part of our leadership. The focus, dedication and drive that he brought to Columbia serves our clients and team well as we’re focused on reinventing and advancing ourselves every day, week, month and year.”

Carl attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned degrees in Sociology and Psychology. While in college, he was on the wrestling team where he achieved All-American honors, and was member of the US National Team in 2009. Even after his college career was over, the desire to be a leader was still something that motivated Fronhofer, and he was introduced as the head wrestling coach at Columbia University.

Carl HeadshotAfter spending 5 successful years at Columbia, Carl sought a new challenge. Coming from a family of designers, engineers and machinists RKS was a natural fit for him to pin a role as team leader at RKS.

Carl added, “I am extremely excited to join the RKS team, and am confident my knowledge and experience running an NCAA Division I athletic program will translate to my new role as Director of Operations at RKS. I am looking forward to the new challenges and being able to use my management and team building skills to help this organization evolve”.

 

RKS is confident that Fronhofer will apply his leadership skills to build an even stronger team unity. Influencing a team of professional designers and innovators is as exciting as doing the same for a competitive athletic team.

 

“The focus, dedication and drive that he brought to Columbia serves our clients and team well as we’re focused on reinventing and advancing ourselves every day, week, month and year.”

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About RKS

RKS is a design and innovation firm that creates solutions for clients that are relevant to the market, build the brand and create emotional connection. RKS services the full range of companies from funded startups to multinational corporations. Founder Ravi K. Sawhney cultivated a people-centric approach modeled from his work at Xerox PARC in the 1970’s, where innovative methods using psychology as an essential factor in design resulted in the first-generation touch screen graphic interface as well as many other breakthroughs. RKS came to national attention shortly after its founding by developing the production design of the animated Teddy Ruxpin, one of the greatest disruptive success stories in the history of the toy industry. Success followed success, with RKS being in on the ground floor of tablets with Alan Kay, Pocket Arcades with Sega and the game-changing dental whitening system for Discus Dental. Another milestone was the turnaround of MiniMed, developing a discreet personal insulin pump that allowed millions of diabetics to shed the stigma of being seen as “sick.” This inspired design took MiniMed from a declining $40M in revenue to $270M in three years, leading to its acquisition by Medtronic for $3.6B. The 1990’s brought a confluence of deep introspection and humanity, along with insights into how the work of Joseph Campbell and Abraham Maslow could inform design. This direction led to RKS Design’s highly acclaimed Psycho-Aesthetics methodology.
RKS design team workshopping new projects in the conference room

About RKS

RKS is a design and innovation firm that creates solutions for clients that are relevant to the market, build the brand and create emotional connection.

RKS services the full range of companies from funded startups to multinational corporations. Founder Ravi K. Sawhney cultivated a people-centric approach modeled from his work at Xerox PARC in the 1970’s, where innovative methods using psychology as an essential factor in design resulted in the first-generation touch screen graphic interface as well as many other breakthroughs.
RKS came to national attention shortly after its founding by developing the production design of the animated Teddy Ruxpin, one of the greatest disruptive success stories in the history of the toy industry. Success followed success, with RKS being in on the ground floor of tablets with Alan Kay, Pocket Arcades with Sega and the game-changing dental whitening system for Discus Dental. Another milestone was the turnaround of MiniMed, developing a discreet personal insulin pump that allowed millions of diabetics to shed the stigma of being seen as “sick.” This inspired design took MiniMed from a declining $40M in revenue to $270M in three years, leading to its acquisition by Medtronic for $3.6B.

The 1990’s brought a confluence of deep introspection and humanity, along with insights into how the work of Joseph Campbell and Abraham Maslow could inform design. This direction led to RKS Design’s highly acclaimed Psycho-Aesthetics methodology.

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