frog recently faced its first-ever leadership change, with founder Hartmut Esslinger stepping down from his responsibilities as CEO and creative lead. How will the company's creative vision change?

The essence of it won't. This vision has been constant and will remain – frog's vision is to make the world better through design, and to be the best at it. But if you look back at frog's history, the nuances of how this vision is expressed and acted upon have changed over time. We will continue to change.

The new creative leadership team at frog, which you now pilot, is just that – a team. Isn't it important for a design firm to have a single vision, a single figurehead?

A creative organization like ours is made of very passionate and opinionated folks. That's a great thing. My job is to help focus that energy and cacophony into something cohesive.

You recently participated in a roundtable discussion entitled "Redesigning a Design Firm 1926-2006: How to Stay Relevant in Changing Times." How should design firms adjust to remain relevant?

Learn how to change. Do it often and rapidly. As soon as you think you have it all figured out, toss it out and think again. Our creative culture is the only real constant.

What is changing in the design world now, and what should we expect in the near future?

Customers can do more of it themselves. We must be more comprehensive and provide deeper expertise than ever before.

Are clients coming to design firms with different, more high-level problems, or are design firms like frog simply approaching the same problems with a wider skill set?

The stakes are higher early in the product cycle to get the idea right. We need to start earlier with them to ensure the best outcome. We also have a need to present a comprehensive perspective on design – software, ID, engineering, and brand can't be executed independently. Unfortunately, that's still just the ideal. We have a lot of work to do.