Wantana Pojanaporn’s appetite for exotic cuisine, love of design, and sense of adventure pulled her away from her native Thailand to the United States, where she received her Master’s Degree in Industrial Design from Savannah College of Art and Design. With an undergraduate degree in Ceramics and an interest in interior design, Wantana strives to create products and experiences that inspire a sense of wonder and bring joy to their users.

Prior to working at Pip Tompkin Studio, Wantana worked as a packaging designer for iJoy, an electronic accessories company, and as a product designer at Wooden Toy Co.

Wantana is fluent in English and Thai.

The son of an architect, Jarett Volkoff was first exposed to design at the age of five when his father taught him to draw cars and houses. In high school, during a graphic design internship at Liquid Agency, he discovered the field of Industrial Design, and decided to pursue product design as a profession. He received his ID degree from Virginia Tech, where he was a Finalist in the Connected Future Innovation Challenge, and Winner of the Third-Year Industrial Design Book Award. An avid traveler with the curiosity of an explorer and a lover of extreme sports, Jarett has visited every continent, and draws inspiration from his many trips around the globe. He strives to create thoughtful, simple designs that are instantly recognizable and delightful to use.

Prior to Pip Tompkin Studio, Jarett worked at Tile Inc. as a Freelance Industrial Designer. His internships include Specialized and Liquid Agency.

Born in Mission Viejo, CA and raised in Seattle, China, and Utah, Rachel Helen is no stranger to travel, adventure, and building networks. Throughout her successful 5-year career as a social media professional, Rachel has developed and built successful social media campaigns for a large array of companies ranging from high-end boutiques and talent agencies to fashion and tech companies. Rachel’s past clients have included Nordstrom, Creatix Labs, Four Block Properties, Slingshot, McCarty Talent Agency, and Audax Systems.

Rachel believes that social media is today’s currency -- an equalizer that allows anyone to participate in dialogue that was previously reserved for celebrities, press, and politicians. With the power to mobilize people, ignite movements, and influence social change, Rachel feels a deep responsibility to create honest content that is rooted in authenticity and is socially responsible.

Denny Liao grew up in Taiwan before moving to the United States at the age of 12. The son of a shoe manufacturer, Denny was first exposed to product design when he and his brother designed shoes for themselves that their father produced at his shoe factory as an alternative to purchasing competitor products. Denny’s pure aesthetic and analytical allow him to create impactful designs that create positive change.

While pursuing a design degree at Art Center College of Design, Denny studied abroad in and at INSEAD in Singapore. Prior to joining the Pip Tompkin Team, Denny worked for several notable design consultancies including Astro Studios and Fuseproject, where he helped design MINT™ automatic floor cleaner, which won several design awards, like IDEA and Good Design Award.

Denny is fluent in English and Mandarin.

Born into a family of educators in the small farming town of Deal in South East England, Sam McClellan grew up with a special affinity toward the arts and sports. Sam studied Industrial Design at Brunel University in London. He was one of ten students to be chosen for a study abroad program in San Francisco, where he won several competitions, including a future concept competition for Bentley. Sam’s playful, quirky sensibility and love of efficient, clean design infuse his designs with a sense of elegance and joy.

Sam returned to London living in San Francisco with one goal: to find a way back to California. After graduation, he turned down a prestigious ID position in London, and began applying to design agencies in the United States as he worked at “No Name Sandwich Shop” in the town of Sandwich on No Name Street. After four months, Sam secured a position at Pip Tompkin Studio.

Pip Tompkin is the award-winning designer and visionary responsible for creating revolutionary products and strategies for companies such as DAQRI, Dell, Microsoft, Nokia, Toshiba, Vizio, Polycom, Twitter, iRobot, Toshiba, HTC, Playjam, Discovery Kids, and Belkin that changed the face of people centered products. His designs, which are featured in many magazines and publications, have garnered numerous patents and awards, and have yielded global sales in the hundreds of millions. Pip’s ability to innovate through design and create products that often surpass the demand expectations of his clients, make him one of the most sought-after industrial designers working today.

Pip graduated top of his class from the Northumbria University in Newcastle, as the university’s #1 ranking Industrial Design student. He earned his Masters of Industrial Design from the prestigious Royal College of Art in London, the No. 1 Design school in the world, where he became the first person in seven years to receive the Special Examiners Distinction, an accolade reserved only for the most exceptional graduates.

After college, Pip’s love of architecture and ability to simplify complex functionality through intuitive design allowed him to develop products, infrastructure, and strategy for architecture and design firms in England, Norway, Sweden, Finland, China, Korea, and the Netherlands. In 2001, Pip moved to the United States where he helped create Dell’s most iconic and innovative products for gaming, education, consumer, and enterprise markets. Between 2001 and 2005, Pip helped define product aesthetics, user experience, and design functionality that would allow Dell become the No.1 computer company in the world. The XPS design language, which he created, continues to define the Dell brand today.

In 2005, Pip accepted a specialist design position at Nokia where he developed the Nokia M Series, the first truly multimedia smartphone. During his three years at Nokia, Pip was instrumental in brand and UI development, and designed several award winning phones for American, European, and Asian markets, surpassing sales expectations by more than ten million units. He served on a board in Helsinki to define Nokia’s design strategies for its global portfolio.

In December of 2008, Pip announced the launch of the Pip Tompkin Studio, a design firm built on Pip’s “Assume Nothing” philosophy, through which Pip encourages his team of exceptional designers to question all assumptions made by a product’s predecessors, often resulting in a disruption of the status quo and great leaps in advancement. Pip Tompkin Studio opened its doors to international acclaim, and quickly established itself as an incubator of progressive design solutions for forward-thinking companies around the world.

Passionate about innovation, Pip enjoys pushing the boundaries of possibility when designing products at the frontlines of technological advancement. Consequently, his designs continue to define conventional uses of emerging technologies, create paradigm shifts, and form trends.

Ella grew up in Thailand, Pakistan, and Korea before moving to the United States in 2011 to attend Art Center College of Design. Her passion for design and storytelling coupled with her minimalist aesthetic and thoughtful design approach allows her to create profound products and experiences that connect with audiences emotionally.

Prior to joining the Pip Tompkin Team, Ella interned at Karten Design, worked as a Freelancer Designer specializing in visual design for Freewaters and digital experiences for several start-up companies.

Ella is fluent in Korean and English.

Ellie Shoja is an award-winning Writer, Film and Television Producer, and Podcast Host. As a person with a violent and unconventional childhood, who lived on three continents and spoke five languages before the age of 15, Ellie’s personal story is a riveting tale of perseverance in the face of adversity. From Turkey to Germany to Iran to the United States, the stabilizing through-line in her life has always been her love of story. Her innate understanding of storytelling and a fascination with the human condition allow Ellie to write compellingly on any topic.

Prior to working at Pip Tompkin Studio, Ellie wrote and produced television and film projects for various Los Angeles-based productions. She is the co-host of the Web Series MD Podcast on iTunes and the force behind the 20/20 Meditate for Peace Movement.

Ellie is fluent in English, German, and Farsi.

Raised on a farm in North Carolina, Madison Smith attended Savannah College of Art and Design and studied both Industrial Design and Interaction Design, graduating top of her class. Madison’s designs have garnered much recognition, iF Awards, Red Dot Awards and the CES Best of Innovation Award. Her user-centric approach to design allows her to dissect the user experience and scrutinize every design decision from the point of view of the consumer with the final goal of creating products that are not only beautiful, but will fit seamlessly and intuitively into the lives of their users.

Prior to Pip Tompkin Studio, Madison was an industrial designer in the accessories division at Kohler as well as Lenovo, where she contributed to several award-winning products. In 2012, Madison spent three months in Cuba where she directed an award-winning short film about Cuba’s dying street sport, Stickball.

With the success of three innovative businesses under her belt, the Co-Founder and CFO of Pip Tompkin Design Studio, Shannon Hematian, has established herself as one of the most fashion-forward, prolific female entrepreneurs working in the fields of technology and design today. A first generation Iranian Immigrant and a style leader, Shannon is a strong advocate for entrepreneurial, science and technology education for women. Shannon has applied her influence as Board Member and Technology Advisor for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and a presenter at tech conferences to educate, encourage, and empower women to pursue careers is the fields of technology and design.

With deep roots in gaming and computer programming, Shannon started her first business, an Internet hosting company that leveraged emerging technologies to build superior user experiences, at the age of 19, while attending the University of California, Irvine. During this period, she became an Oracle DBA and received a Sun Microsystems Enterprise Certification, while growing her business and working toward a degree in Accounting. After graduating from college, Shannon sold her company and moved to New York City to work for the globally acclaimed consultancy firm Deloitte and Touche.

In 2006, Shannon founded Project Untangle, an efficiency and business management consultancy, helping celebrities and small businesses optimize their business operations.

In December 2008, Shannon joined award-winning Industrial Designer Pip Tompkin to launch the Pip Tompkin Design Studio. Under Shannon’s enterprising leadership, the company opened its doors to rave reviews, and became profitable within its first year in business. During a marketing campaign that would shake the entire design industry, Shannon injected her love of fashion into the company’s image to bridge the gap between high fashion and industrial design.

Today, Pip Tompkin Studio employs some of the most talented young designers in the industry, and provides design services to top companies such as DAQRI, Twitter, Polycom, iRobot, Belkin, Toshiba, Dell, HTC, Microsoft, Vizio, Discovery Kids, Playjam and many more.

Shannon is fluent in English and Farsi, with working knowledge of Italian and French.