Design Forum Founder Lee Carpenter Leaving Interbrand

Dayton, Ohio (23 July 2014) —Interbrand, the world’s leading brand consultancy, announced today that Lee Carpenter is leaving his current position as CEO of the North America region.

Carpenter who has served as CEO of Interbrand North America since 2007, will step down from his full-time role today.  Lee will continue to advise Interbrand during the next three months, but has decided to focus his attention on other personal opportunities.   

Lee started Design Forum in 1978 as a traditional retail design firm in Dayton, Ohio, but clearly it became something much, much more. Surrounded with great creative talent and innovative thinking, he envisioned a wider scope for the role of design in retail problem solving. He began asking clients for access to consumer research, brand, marketing strategy, and assortment rationale which became part of the creative dialogue. In 2002, Design Forum was acquired by Interbrand, extending its reach to help brands globally develop sound strategies and ground-breaking new brand experiences.  Five years later in 2007, Lee assumed his current Chairman and CEO role leading all of Interbrand’s North American units.

During his career, Lee has worked with a roster of international clients including Walgreens, Best Buy, Porsche, Burger King, AT&T, Disney, Chase, JCPenney, Honda, FedEx, Applebee’s, John Deere, Holiday Inn, The Home Depot and Procter & Gamble. He’s helped competitive companies like these develop strategies and designs to help them transform and drive performance.

Josh Feldmeth, who currently leads Interbrand’s New York, San Francisco and Toronto offices has been promoted to succeed Carpenter. Dirk Defenbaugh will continue to lead Dayton-based Interbrand Design Forum.

About Interbrand Design Forum

Since 1978, we have been creating retail brand experiences for companies around the world. Interbrand Design Forum’s talent for game-changing innovation led us to create a business model that integrates brand strategy, insights, retail design, digital, documentation and rollout to provide clients with a comprehensive offering. By bringing together a diverse range of insightful thinkers, we deliver solutions that are rigorously analytical and highly creative through the Interbrand network of 1,200 associates in almost 40 offices around the globe.

About Interbrand

Founded in 1974, Interbrand (www.interbrand.com) is the world's leading brand consultancy. With nearly 40 offices in 27 countries, Interbrand's combination of rigorous strategy, analytics, and world-class design enables it to assist clients in creating and managing brand value effectively, across all touchpoints, in all market dynamics. By understanding and anticipating the changing needs and demands of consumers, the firm helps its clients across industries, to drive greater business growth while solving their most pressing business challenges. Interbrand is widely recognized for its annual Best Global Brands report, the definitive guide to the world's most valuable brands, as well as its Best Global Green Brands report, which identifies the gap between customer perception and a brand's performance relative to sustainability. It is also known for having created brandchannel.com, a Webby-award winning resource about brand marketing and branding. Interbrand is part of the Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) network of agencies. For more information, please visit us at interbrand.com.

For more information please contact:
Beth Ling
Director of Public Relations
Interbrand Design Forum
(937) 312-8803
beth.ling@interbrand.com