Frank Nuovo

Who is Frank Nuovo?

Frank Nuovo, an Italian American, has been a leading mobile phone industrial designer, and a former Vice President and Chief of Design at Nokia.

Nuovo started his professional industrial design career in 1986 working with Charles Pelly's Designworks. Early projects ranged from furniture to medical instruments and from consumer electronics and transportation interiors to complex air traffic and automated control systems workstation designs. Nuovo's work with Nokia began as a consultant in 1989 while continuing work at Designworks/USA in Agoura. After many successful projects for Nokia, in 1995 he began working for Nokia full-time, setting up Nokia's first dedicated industrial design and styling group and center in Los Angeles, California. Over the next decade Nuovo led the creation of Nokia's first global design team, which, during his administration, included additional design centers in Finland and England, and also included remote design teams in Denmark, China, Japan, Germany and other locations in the USA.

During his time at Nokia, Nuovo was responsible for leading design strategy for what can be considered one of the most successful stories of growth and success in modern history. Innovations there combine technology, usability and style with user centered design. Nuovo and his team helped Nokia capture market share that maintained global leadership at levels more than twice that of the nearest competitor's global market share. While at Nokia, Nuovo was very active in brand development and renewal resulting in Nokia’s position as the worlds 6th most valuable brand.