Jason Severs has joined the New York headquarters of Droga5 as chief design officer, a new role at the agency. Severs will lead the shop’s overall design department and help grow existing client relationships with new services, allowing creative and strategic offerings to feed directly into broader product and service development and innovation.
As chief design officer, Severs will define Droga5’s vision and goals for world-class design capabilities, which include creative technology, experience and brand design. As the agency grows its offerings, capabilities and client roster, Severs will create a multifaceted practice by helping extend Droga5’s creative and strategy into relevant and engaging brand experiences for existing and future clients. He will be the agency’s champion of the customer, integrating a human-centered design-thinking approach to the agency’s creative philosophy and ways of working, evangelizing that approach internally and with clients.
“For this new role at the agency, we needed someone with ambition, compassion and talent to oversee three of our most crucial departments: Experience Design, Brand Design and Creative Tech,” said founder and creative chairman David Droga. “Jason is fortunate to inherit talented individuals who are leading our design departments, and I look forward to his contributions to our continued success.”
Severs joins Droga5 with more than 20 years of design and leadership experience under his belt. Most recently, he served as director of experience design & strategic initiatives at Verizon, where he led end-to-end experience teams for the brand’s digital products and services. Prior to Verizon, he had an 11-year tenure at frog design, where he was the executive creative director for the New York studio and global experience strategy lead. He has worked on brands such as American Express, United Nations, Google and Under Armour. Outside of the office, Jason teaches master classes at the School of Visual Arts, focusing on how to use design and strategy for deeper social meaning through branded experiences.
“We are aggressively designing the world around us. It’s critical we leverage design to create meaningful experiences and drive innovation in a way that helps brands break through, while also being relevant and respectful to our rapidly evolving human experience,” said Severs. “Creative agencies such as Droga5 are looking to increase their impact on clients’ businesses with communications and content designed for engagement.”
