Steve Santangelo

Steve is a passionate strategist, writer, and consultant with more than three decades of experience in North America, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. His expertise spans brand strategy, verbal identity, culture definition, and business transformation. Since 2000, he has helped position more than 100 brands in diverse industries, including technology, financial, healthcare, industrial products and services, consumer goods, hospitality/places, and education/non-profit institutions.

Most recently, Steve was Chief Strategy Officer at NY-and London-based boutique brand consultancy Straightline, where he led the global strategy team and worked closely with several clients, providing brand strategy, innovation, and communications development, as well as culture transformation and business consultation. His clients included ABB, Allergan, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Thomson Reuters, Endologix, Gentherm, and Walgreens Boots Alliance. Prior to Straightline, Steve was Senior Director of Consulting at MBLM New York, where he pioneered the company’s proprietary brand intimacy study, highlighting how people form emotion-based relationships with brands. Steve was also responsible for brand and digital strategy, content development, and digital analytics. His clients included UL, ADNOC, One Central/Dubai Trade Centre District, and Alliance Bernstein.

Steve was also Director and Senior Director of Strategy, respectively, at Siegel+Gale and FutureBrand, two of the world’s largest global brand consultancies. Other clients Steve has helped include SAP, HP, Siemens, Cannondale, Tata, Macquarie, Vanguard, McGraw-Hill, SONY, St. Lucia, Qatar, Nakheel, Al Fanar, Saudi Aramco, Batelco, and Bahrain International Airport. At FutureBrand, Steve also led the development of and authored the annual studies Country Brand Index and Gulf Real Estate Study (2007-2009 for each).

Steve has a Bachelors degree (BA) from the University of Virginia with a double major in Philosophy and Government Studies. He also has significant professional education, focused primarily on transformation.