Founding partner Claudio Luís Vera possesses the unlikely combination of an experimental art background and business experience in marketing and innovation management. Claudio first stretched his entrepreneurial muscles in 1994 when he co-founded Black Bean Studios, where he managed client engagements and built the business into a viable entity that left a lasting impression on the design community. After Black Bean was acquired in 1999, Claudio shared the title of Chief Creative Officer at the new entity, spearheading complex client engagements to develop large-scale Web sites and Web-based applications.

Claudio is an accomplished art director and illustrator, and his designs have received recognition from Communication Arts, The One Show, the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council (MIMC), HOW Magazine, and Graphic Design USA, among many others. He shares his passion for good design with a special interest in developing media for interactive physical spaces.

Born to Latin American diplomats in Washington DC, Claudio was raised in the environment of that city’s international organizations. He speaks Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese, in addition to English, HTML, and a variety of scripting languages. Claudio graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in Art History and continued his studies at the University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He also holds an MBA at Boston University’s School of Management with a concentration in the management of innovation and design.