Strategy & Research

Susana Rodríguez de Tembleque is responsible for the originality and creativity of SYPartners’ work, setting the overall creative vision for the firm and leading her team of multidisciplinary designers to conceptualize and bring to life transformative strategies, stories, and ideas. She also plays an active role in the work itself—helping the Gap reimagine its store environment and customer experience, assisting GE with cultivating a culture of innovation, and working with IBM to design the award-winning THINK exhibit. Susana is also a member of the board of directors of the AIGA and was recognized by GDUSA as one of 25 “People to Watch in 2012.”

With more than 4,100 acres of land and over 220 parks under its jurisdiction, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department stewards some of the most spectacular public spaces in the world. In 2012, the Trust for Public Land named San Francisco the nation’s best urban park system.

Under Phil Ginsburg’s leadership, the Recreation and Park Department has instituted the first gardener apprenticeship program in the State of California. The Department has also completed several water conservation projects, and cultivated nearly 150,000 hours of annual support from volunteers. Most near and dear to him, Ginsburg has been passionate about improving access to open space and recreational opportunities for San Francisco’s underserved youth through robust scholarship and environmental education programs.

She attended Mount Lebanon High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated in 1993. She holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she graduated in 1997.

Kate started her design career at AmeriFIT brands in Bloomfield, CT designing retail corporate identity and packaging. She then went on to work at Keiler and Company in Farmington, CT with a continued focus on corporate identity, as well as advertising.

In 2000, Kate started working at eBay, shifting her career focus to interactive design and user experience. For the next six and a half years, she managed and led design efforts on eBay’s search, merchandising and feedback products as well as eBay’s sub brands and new businesses.

Kate joined LinkedIn as their first Director of Design in 2007. There, she established their design and user experience organization. A year later, she joined Facebook.

Since then, Kate has grown Facebook’s design organization from 20 to well over 120. Currently, the team is known as a world-class assembly of designers, researchers, engineers and content strategists. Together, they focus on developing and shipping social, intuitive and adaptive experiences to over a billion people.

In 2012 Kate was named to Fast Company’s list of the 50 Most Influential Designers.

Jesse McMillin, Virgin America’s Creative Director, is responsible for everything from advertising to in-flight experience, events, signage, partnerships, and beyond. As steward of the California-based airline’s brand aesthetic, it is his job to keep Virgin America on the cutting edge as a design-focused brand. Evidence of his inspiration can be found everywhere from the gate areas at Virgin America’s San Francisco International Airport (SFO) T2 home base, to the beverage cups and headsets provided to guests in flight.

Before coming aboard at Virgin America in 2007, McMillin was a Senior Designer at Nike’s European Headquarters in Amsterdam where he worked on sportswear and branding for the EMEA region. Prior to that, he was an art director for Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners West in San Francisco, where his clients included Barnes & Noble, The San Francisco Giants, Cisco, BBC America and Netscape. His CV also includes a stint as a graphic designer for Levi Strauss & Co. and a variety of work in the skateboard industry as a designer and illustrator.

McMillin attended the San Francisco Art Institute and the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He is married with two children and lives in San Francisco.