About Us

20+ years of experience providing creative strategy and executing projects across SaaS, film, the arts, music, fashion, hospitality, entertainment, consumer and retail services.

Tardigrade (water bear) — Patient, Strategic, & Adaptive ( Like Water Bears )

AndThereWas

Transformation Design Consultancy

AndThereWas, LLC is an award-winning 🏆 interdisciplinary design (print/ web/ mobile) firm with over 20 years of experience in product design & development and transformation life design consulting.

We enjoy co-creating delightful user-focused experiences, cultivating product design enthusiasts, and restoring time & energy via transformation life design design approaches, processes, and mindset.

“Saving time is saving lives. That said, we like to think we’re in the life-saving business.”

— Cleo Henderson

Mission

Create. Transform. Repeat.

Our belief at AndThereWas, LLC is by solving problems together we can co-create better virtual and in-person experiences by way of ingenuity, originality, creativity, a human-centered narrative. We focus on saving time, energy, and money to help connect the dots and achieve an understanding and level of confidence we all desire (and deserve).

Core Values

Minding Our Manners

Community Delight Enlighten Integrity Embrace & Drive Change

Our Framework

The AndThereWas Framework

We utilize a proprietary and process to co-create delightful experiences and restore time and energy for both organizations and individuals.

andtherewas-framework-for-holistic-transformation

The Why: Our Process The How: Our Mindset

Our Founder

Cleo Henderson, Founder of AndThereWas, LLC

AndThereWas - Cleo Henderson

Principal Transformation Consultant, CDO & Systems Architect

Cleo Henderson is an award-winning Principal Transformation Consultant and Fractional Design Leader with over 20 years of experience translating highly complex technical and operational challenges into measurable business revenue.

As a versatile systems architect, Cleo has successfully navigated every phase of the corporate lifecycle: scaling early startups to “0-to-1” launch readiness, optimizing growth-stage ventures, and leading design for publicly traded enterprises.

At AndThereWas, he deploys proprietary operational frameworks to help engineering-led firms build absolute “Platform Rigor” and eliminate design-to-developer handoff friction.

The Who: Cleo Henderson

Awards

Continued Excellence

Since the company was founded by an 10+ award winning product design expert. It’s only fitting to continue the tradition of award-winning creations.

AndThereWas has received a GOLD 2022 Davey Award and two silver 2022 w3 Awards from The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA) for HowToBeALighthouse.com.