Alan Siegel Is one of the best-known figure in the branding industry and a longtime advocate of clarity and simplicity in communications. In 2011 Alan created Siegelvision, a new strategic branding and communications consultancy that champions clarity above all. Alan is also the founder and chairman emeritus of global branding agency Siegel and Gale.

Alan Siegel founded Siegel and Gale in 1969, and over the course of forty years transformed it from a small consultancy into one of the most respected branding firms in the world. While at Siegel and Gale, Alan helped define some of the most iconic brands of our time, working with clients like the NBA, Xerox, American Express, Caterpillar, The Girl Scouts, and many others. Always an innovator, Alan developed the concept of a Brand Voice ™ and was one of the first in the industry to use the Internet as a tool for brand communication. Throughout his entire career, Alan has always been a proponent of clarity and simplicity, and has sought to apply those principles to all of his work

Having experienced the power of clarity in branding, Alan became a major figure in the Plain English movement during the 1970s, and worked with dozens of major financial institutions, the Census Bureau and the IRS to simplify complex legal and financial documents. Alan has written extensively on this subject for the New York Times, The Huffington Post and the National Law Journal, and has talked about simplification on Today, The McNeil-Lehrer Report, CNN and CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, and ABC News with Peter Jennings. Throughout his career, Alan has lectured at major business conferences and universities around the world, and he was a featured speaker at the TED Conference in 2010

To further the cause of clarity, Alan brought his ideas to college classrooms. He served as an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University Law School for several years, where he created and taught a course on writing contracts in plain English, and as an adjunct associate professor at Carnegie Mellon where he cofounded the Communications Design Center.

Although Alan no longer teaches, his desire to give back didn’t end with his foray into education. He currently sits on the boards of several foundations and community organizations, including the Museum of Arts and Design, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Nathaniel Wharton Foundation at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and the American Theater Wing, where he is a Tony voter.

Alan is the author of a series of personal financial guides for the Wall Street Journal, including the bestseller The Wall Street Journal Guide to Money and Markets. He is also the author of two books of photography, One Man’s Eye: photographs from the Alan Siegel Collection and Step Right This Way: The Photographs of Edward J. Kelty. In 2006, Louis Slovinsky authored Alan Siegel on Branding and Clear Communications, a biography on Alan, his legacy, and his philosophy.

IRENE ETZKORN, a worldwide authority on simplicity, is Chief Clarity Strategist at Siegelvision working closely with Alan Siegel and a handpicked team of simplifiers. Previously, she built the Simplification practice of Siegel+Gale. Her clients include the nation's top banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies, utilities, and health care providers.