Sector
Art
Luxury
Practice areas
Strategy
Ecommerce
Design
Creative
Marketing
Customer Experience
Executive Search
Sector
Retail
Health
Practice areas
Strategy
Ecommerce
Design
Creative
Marketing
Customer Experience
Sector
Beauty
Fashion
Wellness
Practice areas
Strategy
Corporate Structure
Design
Creative
Marketing
Customer Experience
Partnerships
Sector
Home Furnishings
Practice areas
Strategy
Ecommerce
Customer Experience
Creative
Design
Marketing
Sector
Direct-to-consumer
Practice areas
Strategy
Customer Experience
Organizational Structure
Creative
Design
Marketing
Sector
Retail
Practice areas
Strategy
Ecommerce
Creative Operations
Customer Experience
Creative & Design
Marketing
Partnerships
PR
Sectors
Art & Luxury
Manufacturing
Retail
Health
Media
Hospitality
Government
Politics
Clients
Bed Bath & Beyond
Christie’s
Citic Capital
Crocs
Ebay
Elysium Health
F. Schumacher & Co.
Goop
GNC
Herman Miller Retail
Holly Hunt
Hubble Contacts
Il Buco Family
KiwiCo
Knoll
Rethink Foods
Selldorf Architects
Seliger Studios
Tecovas
The Paris Review
US Mobile
Waterworks
Zappos
We collaborate with you to identify and refine high-value opportunities, develop actionable plans, and stay to lead teams in executing these plans effectively. Additionally, we supplement company teams with capabilities they may lack to ensure success.
Our methodology is based on cross-functional task forces, ensuring comprehensive solutions and effective implementation.
IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES
Analyze the business, its assets, brand, existing audience, resources and capabilities and identify key, achievable opportunities for strategic expansion.
ESTABLISH A TASK FORCE
Organize and lead an internal task force of key cross-functional roles across the organization to execute the strategy and make the change sustainable, providing resources as needed.
TRANSITION OWNERSHIP
Transition the task force leadership to internal resources so that the new capabilities become part of the existing operations and culture.
Origami provides leadership and operating expertise from strategy through implementation and the necessary capacity to resource initiatives to support the run the business team.
Origami’s change-the-business advisory addresses opportunities from brand to corporate structure across a range of consumer-facing industries.
Some examples:
Jed Alpert is the President of Origami, a technology founder, software executive and attorney. Prior to Origami he led the largest and fastest growing division of the NASDAQ listed company which acquired the business he founded. He has closed and integrated over 20 acquisitions and led due diligence and integration planning.
Joshua Liberson founded Origami in 2017 and has been helping brands tell better stories for over 25 years. In 2001 he established Helicopter, a design company that served clients in the arts, media, hospitality, and home sectors. In 2011, Helicopter was acquired by its client One Kings Lane, where Helicopter evolved into a best-in-class, 100 person creative agency, serving all aspects of the customer experience.
Joaquín Alvarado advises leading media companies and nonprofits like Microsoft, Univision, NBC News and the Ford Foundation. He is the founder of Studiotobe, a media production and consulting firm dedicated to journalism, health equity, and community-based impact. His partners have included the California Department of Public Health Office of Health Equity and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. Joaquin has served as CEO of The Center for Investigative Reporting, held innovation roles at American Public Media and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and currently serves on Consumer Reports, the James B McClatchy Foundation, and 826 National.
Jeremy Bergstein is a leader in bridging the physical and digital consumer ecosystem. As founder of The Science Project, he has led innovative projects for brands like Nike, Clinique, and UNIQLO, and advised property groups such as SIMON Malls and Macerich on experiential, media and new revenue strategies. His work includes major activations like the BARNEYS Holiday Windows with Lady Gaga and Bloomingdale’s “All Wrapped Up” campaign, the Kardashians + Calvin Klein at Macys, and NIKE’s Flagship Innovation Stores. A recognized thought leader, Jeremy has spoken at top industry conferences, and his insights have been featured in major publications. He currently serves on the board of The High School of Fashion Industries.
Britt Borlinghaus has extensive experience supporting executives across diverse business environments. She honed her organizational skills managing a college wrestling team and applied her Psychology degree in the Kansas/Missouri school system. A tested problem-solver, Britt is known for her strong professional relationships and positive disposition. Her art has also been published in veterinary science journals, contributing to discussions on liver biopsies and immune system interactions of cows.
Greg Fant is an e-commerce veteran with extensive experience in General Management, Brand Management, Product Management and Marketing Strategy development and operational Planning. Greg has +25 years of marketing experience at a wide range of early stage and late stage private companies, and public companies, including Thumbtack, One Kings Lane, eBay, and The Coca-Cola Company. Greg has significant experience managing all qualitative and quantitative marketing channels and has a deep understanding of the universe of the most effective marketing, analytics, and site optimization solutions, as well as the universe of “emerging” marketing channels.
Howard Goldkrand is an Innovation Catalyst. He’s designed award-winning storytelling strategies for Fortune 500 companies and impactful customer experiences for startups and brands like Zappos, Indeed, Lululemon, and Nike. He helped create the first “pop up” experience for Song Airlines and an Emmy-nominated ARG for the TV show DEXTER. He has exhibited works worldwide and held residencies at PS1, Chinati Foundation, and Recollets Foundation Paris.
Richard Hansen is an executive and consultant with 25+ years of experience in the retail, marketplaces, and subscription industries. His primary focus is creating growth and profitability through strategy, analytics and customer insights. Richard has led consulting teams at Bain & Company, held senior leadership roles at Walmart and eBay, and been on the management teams of both rapidly growing startups and publicly-traded companies. He is passionate about helping businesses achieve their full value potential.
Rammy Harwood is an entrepreneur who co-founded and led brands like Cosi, Kidville, and Club Sports Group (CSG), the largest F45 Training franchisee. Rammy’s passion for cultivating dynamic teams and fostering authentic cultures drives sustainable ventures, leaving a profound impact on industries, communities, and team members. He excels in finding elite corporate ‘athletes’ and positioning them for success, with experience at all company stages, from entrepreneurial to professional.
Thaddeus Kromelis is a seasoned executive from the advertising, marketing, and media industries. He advises companies on their content and marketing efforts, including how to build successful teams that drive revenue. From 2015–2024 he built and led the in-house creative agency at Business Insider, a team that generated millions in revenue during his tenure. Prior to that he worked at WPP, Edelman, and Condé Nast.
Kirk Larson is General Counsel of Origami and advises on corporate issues. He is an experienced mergers and acquisitions executive, with nearly all of his career in-house at technology companies. He worked with Jed Alpert as General Counsel of a NASDAQ listed company that grew via acquisitions. Prior to Origami, he led Corporate Development for a PE-backed international software company.
Frederik Roikjer is Finance Lead of Origami with 15+ years of experience in strategic finance. Most recently he was CFO of a Private Equity owned logistics business. Prior to that, he founded and ran a VC fund. Before that, he was a technology investment banker at Morgan Stanley in London and New York, where he worked on $7.5B+ M&A, equity and debt transactions. He started his career in mid-market Private Equity.
Change is not created by talking about change, it is created by doing change.
Operationalizing a new idea is challenging for legacy organizations with established modes of working.
Origami’s focus on delivering outcomes utilizing existing systems and our understanding of how to resource gaps with on-the-ground tactical resources creates massive value for organizations who are stuck.
Impact Story
Reimagining a global retail brand as a partner in health
CITIC Capital acquired the global GNC brand with a vision to increase value by expanding into adjacent health services.
Challenge: Stuck
Despite having lined up several adjacent strategic investments with the intention to plug them into the brand’s existing distribution channels and customer base—GNC’s expansion efforts were met with operational challenges. Mired in the daily complexity of the existing business, the ability to move quickly, think cross-functionally and imagine new futures was diminished. GNC was stuck.
Solution: Unstuck
Citic enlisted Origami to clarify GNC’s strategy and operationalize the transformation. Origami quickly identified a set of existing business capabilities within GNC that could be reframed to substantiate the evolution, persist as a platform for further expansion into health and set up and deployed our Task Force methodology to move from audit to implementation in only 6 months.
The opportunity
Our audit identified existing GNC assets which required minimal operational changes and could therefore be executed upon quickly. Since 2017, GNC had offered automatic product replenishment under the rubric of Auto-Deliver & Save. Origami identified that the lifetime revenue from these customers was 5X the conventional retail customer and focused the strategy on reframing the narrative from a product emphasizing functional delivery attributes into a service supporting the goals of an ongoing health routine over time. Introducing: GNC Routines
Task Force
With a new narrative in hand we organized and led an internal task force of key cross-functional roles from across the GNC organization to execute the strategy both online and in-store and make the change sustainable. To execute quickly, Origami resourced gaps in GNC’s capabilities in program management, strategy, marketing, design & creative, operations, customer experience, and technology.
Transition
The hybrid Origami / GNC task force built a new digital experience for the reimagined subscription service, established the in-store customer experience and trained over 5,000 associates across all 2,600 US-based stores, including franchisees, to establish GNC Routines in July 2022 as the platform for growth and expansion into further health services.
Impact
GNC Routines delivered a 49% increase in YoY subscription sales in under 5 months from launch and provided a clear narrative framework for further expansion including the addition of prescription services in November 2022.
The Task Force enabled the business to execute with velocity and identified the necessary capabilities required to be hired in-house without being dependent on an outside group in perpetuity.
Impact Story
From 2017 to 2021 Origami supported the CEO and ecommerce leadership team to evolve the Zappos shopping experience beyond product categories and create interest-based shopping experiences.
The below are three examples of work created for various Zappos engagements, including the_Ones, for women who love classic sneakers, a co-op marketing video product called ZAPS (Zappos Actual People Stories) and Zappos KIDS.
1. The_Ones totally powered by Zappos
In 2017, Zappos faced a challenge: despite being the 2nd largest online sneaker store, the brand received limited access to high-demand sneakers from key vendors based on their transactional perception of Zappos. Origami identified an opportunity in the sneaker industry’s relentless marketing focus on male consumers, despite women making up nearly half the market. This insight led to ‘The_Ones totally powered by Zappos,’ a story-led platform, fueled by Social, collaborations and partnerships, to celebrate women who love classic sneakers, all backed by Zappos’s renowned logistics and customer service.
2. ZAPS (Zappos Actual People Stories)
Video co-op marketing product designed to use vendor marketing dollars to acquire new customers via paid distribution. Origami established the franchise and the design system and applied it to over 100 videos while training the Zappos team to produce them internally. Drove a 25% increase in YoY coop marketing spend from Zappos vendors.
3. Zappos Kids
Origami teamed up with the Zappos Kids merchandising group to create a strong online presence aimed at parents. The objective was to demonstrate to both vendors and parents that Zappos wasn’t just about shoes; it was a go-to place for kids’ apparel and trusted advice too. In addition to an array of online marketing, the new Zappos Kids was supported by a highly visual print catalog, which brought a wave of new customers to the category.
Origami is a change-the-business advisory. We help companies improve, grow and create lasting change, while supporting the teams running the business.
To learn more, email [email protected]