UME
- Open roles
- 0
- Founded
- 2017
- Employees
- 1-10
- Offices
- 0
About UME
UME is an American brand strategy, design, and organizational consultancy working with founders, researchers, and enterprises in frontier technology. Founded in 2017 by Jee Chang and Eve Smith Davies, it helps organizations translate complex technical ideas into accessible brands and develop the organizational foundations to support their growth. Its name comes from “you and me,” reflecting collaboration between client and creator.
The consultancy connects brand development with organizational strategy. Its work spans market insights, audience research, positioning, naming, visual identity, messaging, and digital experiences. Alongside these creative disciplines, UME supports strategic roadmapping, leadership development, operating principles, and team alignment. This combination allows its engagements to address both how an organization presents itself and how its people work together.
Branding for emerging categories
UME focuses on sectors where unfamiliar technologies require clear explanations and distinctive positioning. Its research identifies work across decentralized technology, privacy, digital ownership, human-centered AI, clean energy, new materials, biotechnology, and life sciences. Projects can encompass category creation, brand launches, website strategy, UX/UI design, development, and thought-leadership messaging.
Its portfolio includes brand strategy and visual identity for Aztec, category creation and organizational design for Mina Protocol and Mina Foundation, and brand evolution for Sia and Sia Foundation. Other engagements include strategic prioritization and positioning for o1Labs, launch messaging for Uptake Alliance, organizational transition advisory for Stanford Impact Labs, and strategic narrative development for VIA Biofuels. These projects connect technical communication with brand and organizational decisions across commercial, nonprofit, and research settings.
A distributed collective
UME operates as an independent, fully distributed collective. Its approach brings together specialists in strategy, creative direction, design, digital experiences, and organizational coaching. Teams are assembled around the requirements of each engagement, connecting complementary disciplines for projects that may span both an external brand launch and internal organizational change.
More about UME
Leadership
- Jee Chang is identified as Managing Partner and is also an executive coach, creative director, and faculty member at Parsons School of Design / The New School.
- Eve Smith Davies is identified as Brand Partner and leads brand direction and Web3/climate positioning.
Working practices and certification
UME describes its model as a “committed collective,” with senior independent specialists selected for modular project teams according to client requirements. The report distinguishes its small permanent leadership team from its broader network of specialist partners and remote collaborators.
The consultancy is certified as a Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE).
Rebrand milestone
In September 2025, collective members Amie Colosa, Christie Ha, Maggie Carr, and Sneha Sankar led an internal rebrand that articulated four growth sectors: decentralized technology, climate and clean energy, human-centered AI, and biotech/care economy.
Notable credits
9 creditsOpen roles
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