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Ed Niehaus is the chairman of the board of CDD, and is president and CEO of Cooper, the San Francisco-based design and strategy firm that invented the field of interaction design two decades ago. In the past, Ed has served on the boards of ClickAction, (NASDAQ: CLAC), Avinon and Bio Quiddity and as a board observer of SocialText. Ed joined Cypress Ventures in 2003 and was a general partner until 2006.

Ed was CEO of Niehaus Ryan Wong, Inc., a PR agency, until 2002. NRW helped many Silicon Valley companies, doing its best-known work for Apple (launched Jobs' comeback, the Powerbook & iMac), VeriSign (launched company), Yahoo (first five years) and Pixar (movie launches, Academy Award campaign). As CEO, Ed steered the award-winning agency to become a nearly $20M company with offices in SF, NY, and Austin.

Ed led the development of NRW's Architecture of Identity strategic branding process, in which over thirty of the agency's clients engaged, resulting in clear and actionable definitions of their companies' vision, positioning, and voice. Ed has a BSME degree from Duke University and is a licensed professional engineer.