kyu Collective is a network of 23 creative firms specializing in strategy, design, behavioral science, transformation, and innovation. 

Established in 2014 and headquartered in New York, kyu is led by CEO Rick Greenberg. Member companies include IDEO, SYPartners, Sid Lee, Kepler, Public Digital, and others. The firms work on their own client engagements and collaborate to leverage the breadth of services across the network or when projects require integrated expertise across disciplines.

Each member firm operates independently with its own leadership and brand. 

Collaboration varies by project. Some clients engage a single kyu firm for specialized work: digital marketing with Kepler, futuring with IDEO, brand strategy with SYLVAIN. Others need integrated teams where firms coordinate from the start. kyu provides shared tools and facilitates collaboration so firms to work together when it makes sense. Learn how collaboration works in practice.

kyu’s companies work across nine capabilities: 

Strategy & Consulting, Behavioral Transformation, Communications & Influence, Branding & Content, Advertising & Experiences, New Media & Data, Systematic Design, Architecture & Environment, and Events & Convening. This spans business strategy and organizational transformation to brand identity, digital products, and experiential marketing. Learn more about our capabilities.

If the need is specialized — crisis communications, urban planning, youth culture marketing — we can connect clients to the right firm directly. 

If the challenge spans multiple domains or it’s unclear what’s needed, our Business Development team will help determine the right configuration. Clients can start with one firm and expand, or assemble a coordinated team upfront. Get to know our companies.

Work with kyu when your challenge sits between strategy and execution or when it requires both at once. 

Consultancies focus on diagnosis and frameworks but don’t build solutions. Agencies execute creative briefs but don’t shape strategy. 

kyu firms work across that divide: combining analytical rigor with design craft, strategic thinking with behavioral science, roadmaps with prototypes. Whether the goal is growth (new markets, new offerings, new positioning) or transformation (operating model change, cultural shifts, digital reinvention), our network adds value when coordination across multiple disciplines determines success. See how we work.

Typical kyu clients are organizations facing complex challenges that require a coordinated approach across strategy, design, technology, and change. 

Organizations facing challenges that don’t fit neatly into ​“strategy project” or ​“creative campaign.” Companies transforming business models, brands entering new categories, public sector entities redesigning how they serve citizens, growth-stage companies building operational capability while scaling. What our clients have in common: problems that require coordination across strategy, design, technology, and change.

It ranges widely. 

Some clients engage us for focused initiatives: a brand refresh, a digital product, a transformation roadmap. Others work with us across multiple years on portfolio-wide change. The network structure allows us to scale teams based on scope and level of coordination.

The work our firms do — strategy, design, organizational change — depends on human relationships and situated expertise. Across the network, AI compresses research cycles, surfaces patterns, and accelerates prototyping. But the judgment about which problems to solve, what solutions are needed, and how change actually lands is handled by the kyu company practitioner. See examples of AI at kyu.

kyu is headquartered in New York. Our companies operate in cities including Montréal, Toronto, London, Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Copenhagen, and Singapore, among others, across North America, Europe, and Asia.

kyu’s methods are designed to integrate, not replace.

Some clients bring us in to complement what their agency or consultancy does well — adding behavioral science to a tech implementation, bringing design thinking to a strategy engagement, providing creative execution for an organizational transformation. 

Contact us or reach out directly to any member firm. 

We’ll discuss the challenge, identify the relevant capabilities, and propose a collaboration, whether that involves a single firm or an integrated approach.