Lee Rafkin
Global Director, Simplification
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Never underestimate the power of travel to transform a kid's perception of the world. In Lee Rafkin's case, a trip to Brazil at the age of eight quite simply rocked his planet, and led to his return years later as a high school exchange student in Rio de Janeiro. From this experience was born an appreciation of exotic cultures, a love of languages, a global perspective, and a desire to boil things down to their core essence in ways that transcend cultural barriers.
Today, Lee leads the global Simplification practice, the business that started it all at Siegel+Gale almost 40 years ago. His view is that "everything communicates" and that simplification is a powerful strategic tool in differentiating and transforming brands. His vision is to expand the scope and global reach of the practice, from designing functional communications to optimizing customer experience in all channels and consumer touchpoints. That takes Lee and the Simplification business into the realm of online, social media, mobile, and anywhere else the time-famined consumer wants to go. These are spaces that Lee knows well, as both a client and as a consultant.
A twenty-year veteran of brand marketing and strategy consulting, Lee graduated from Brown University and secured his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. He received his packaged-goods brand management training at Nabisco and Pillsbury. As director of marketing for consumer products at #1 kid's network Nickelodeon, he cut his teeth in the media and entertainment space, and helped launch one of the most successful licensed products stories of his day with Rugrats and Blues Clues. From there, he co-founded and was chief marketing officer at a wireless Internet start-up that streamed Internet audio programming to mobile devices, a concept slightly ahead of its time. After selling the company, Lee migrated his personal brand to global brand consulting firm FutureBrand, where as Executive Director he led the Latin America region overseeing work in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico, and served as global client executive for AOL International, conducting high-level consulting engagements in China, Europe and throughout Latin America.
In 2002, Lee leveraged his considerable experience and set out on his own to form Rafkin & Company, a boutique brand consulting shop that advised a welter of clients including AOL, Discovery Networks, Reuters, UBS, The Chicago Tribune, Sony Music, the Grand Ole Opry, and shopping center developer Mills Corporation, among others. In October 2008, in search of new challenges and a bigger footprint, he joined Siegel+Gale.
When Lee isn't working, he can be found hiking and skiing in the Berkshires, helping his son perfect his fastball, or renovating his family’s creaky old Victorian home in South Orange, NJ.
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Irene Etzkorn
Simplification Practice Advisor, New York
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You'll find her axiom,
There is no such thing as a boring project, there are only boring executions sandwiched between aphorisms by Albert Camus and Alan
Turing in "Quotes about Design," among the numerous other "Irene Etzkorn" references cited online and in the press. Irene, a long-time collaborator with Alan Siegel, is credited with helping him to widen the applicability of simplified communications beyond business forms and legal literature to become a means of rethinking the
customer-organization relationship and retooling it to become a one-to-one conversation.
Irene has served in several capacities at Siegel + Gale, progressing over 25 years to Group Director of Simplification. Other roles she's played include managing director of
corporate administration and chief business development officer overseeing Global Sales. Numerous projects for financial services companies have benefited from her acumen, and her
clients include most of the nation's top banks, brokerages and insurance companies. Her experience in trust, credit, telecommunications, and health care is equally broad. Irene
recently addressed corporate gatherings at Allstate Insurance, General Electric, and Genworth Financial to discuss how information can strengthen and
simplify the customer experience. She has also delivered speeches for executive gatherings sponsored by The Conference Board, IBM Canada,
Telestrategies, American Bankers Association, American Council of Life Insurers, Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Industry Association.
A selection of her speeches and articles include: "How Financial Paperwork can Build Your Brand"; "Branding's Unsung Heroes, How Unheralded Touchpoints
Affect Customer Experience"; "Bundled Billing Formats: Works of Art or Tape and Glue?"; "Why Government Has Difficulty Communicating"; Plain Language:
Principles and Practice; "Less Is More: Producing Combined, Yet Simplified Financial Statements"; "The Role of Communications in Systems Integration";
and "Achieving Asset Retention Through Improved Communications." Irene holds an MA in Professional Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a BA with
highest honors from C.W. Post College, where she majored in English and Biology. She has also served on the English Advisory Board at Carnegie Mellon University and on the
Communications Advisory Board of Dalbar.
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Christine Mauro
Strategy Director, New York
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As a Strategy Director and Information Architect in the Simplification Group at Siegel+Gale, Christine specializes in solving complex communication problems for clients.
Since joining Siegel+Gale in 1994, Christine has developed simplified design and architecture for documents, web sites, on-line applications, information flow processes and content strategies for clients in industries ranging from brokerage services, telecommunications, consumer credit, mutual funds, insurance, banking, healthcare, utility, and government.
Some of her recent work includes comprehensive blueprints to improve policyholder communications for Allstate, Genworth Financial, and AIG; web sites for The Graduate Management Admissions Council targeting potential students and school administrators; a new layout and production recommendations for the Medicare Handbook sent annually by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid; a consolidated investment statement for USAA; a customer-friendly users’ manual for LifeScan OneTouch Ultra blood glucose monitoring system; and a Verizon Wireless’ bill that not only clarifies billing charges, but uses fewer pages, thus saving the company money in printing.
She has also created designs with color laser technologies, including Triplex, used in First USA’s credit card statements and full laser color used in a highly customized and educational reporting document for Merrill Lynch’s affluent clients. She created a modular fund performance and analysis report for The Northern Trust Company that can be customized by the company’s managers using Excel templates. And she developed a new organizational structure and design for Fannie Mae’s more than 3,000 pages of selling and servicing guidelines for its lenders.
Prior to joining Siegel+Gale, Christine worked as an information architect in the user experience group at BusinessEdge Solutions simplifying web sites for financial companies. She also worked as a designer for Nilssen Design, a package design firm, and Lister Butler, a firm that specializes in corporate identity.
Christine earned a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon in 1990, where she majored in graphic design with a minor in industrial management. For her thesis, she worked with Fitch to develop an interactive educational toy. She has a special interest in the use of electronic media in communications.
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Charlene Raytek
Strategy Director, New York
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As a Strategy Director at Siegel+Gale, Charlene works in the simplification practice to create streamlined, clear communications. For over 20 years, Charlene has worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies to create thoughtful approaches to information challenges across a range of industries included financial services, insurance, telecom, consumer products and pharmaceutical companies.
Charlene rejoined Siegel+Gale from Lehman Brothers where she was the head of Internal Communications (Americas) for Corporate Communications. With direct experience from working within corporations and financial services – including eight years with Merrill Lynch in a range of marketing and communications positions and six years with Lehman Brothers – she creates integrated approaches and streamlined solutions to solve the complex demands of internal and external audiences and stakeholders.
Charlene began her career as a strategist and writer for Siegel+Gale, focusing on simplification programs for financial services and telecom accounts, developing strategies for large-scale document management programs.
Charlene holds an M.A. in professional writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Management and a B.A. in Communications from Waynesburg University.
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Rachael Keeler
Senior Information Architect, New York
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As a senior information architect in Siegel+Gale’s Simplification Group, Rachael creates user-centered solutions that satisfy customer expectations for utility and ease of use, while also supporting business requirements and brand strategy. She is involved in analyzing user needs and business objectives, including conducting interviews with stakeholders and users, developing content and workflow maps that indicate process and systems implications, navigation, and content relationships. Rachael’s clients have included the SEC, NASD, Allstate, Motorola, and Genworth.
Before joining Siegel+Gale, Rachael was an interactive experience consultant at CoreBrand and an information design manager for Toys "R" Us.
Prior to graduate school, Rachael was a naval intelligence officer serving in a range of capacities, from overseeing the daily operation and long-range development of a library to supporting intelligence-gathering flights as part of UN peacekeeping operations over Bosnia.
Rachael holds a master of design in interaction design and a bachelor of humanities and arts in psychology and industrial design, both from Carnegie Mellon University.
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