A MAN OF ACTION
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ALFONSO COBO Seth Travis Mitchell Phun
INTERVIEW IMAGES
Alfonso Cobo is the CEO and co-founder of Unfold, the app that creates elevated, beautiful and engaging stories with minimal and easy-to-use templates inspired by magazine editorials, for Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. In this role he oversees Unfold’s creative direction, product vision and strategy. Under his leadership, the app garnered 20M users in a year.
What were you like growing up, how would your friends and family describe you? I was a very shy and introverted kid growing up . Many of my friends would doubt that though, as I’ve changed quite a bit! Or at least I’ve had to adapt myself to be less of it.
Cobo has a Master’s in Strategic Design and Management from Parsons School of Design (USA) and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of Brighton (UK). A native of the Canary Islands in Spain, Cobo is based in NYC and is driven by good design, tech and adventure.
I grew up in Madrid, Spain. My teen years were interesting to say the least. I had many friends, but I always had that feeling of being a little different to the rest. There were two sides of me: the one I wanted to show to the world, and the one that I really was. I started going out pretty early on, and sometimes hung with kids I shouldn’t have hung out with. I kind of hid many of my interests or passions because I was afraid of showing how much of a ‘weirdo’ or ‘nerd’ I really was. It’s funny though, because nowadays I embrace that side I wanted to hide so much back then. Those things that seemed ‘weird’ or ‘not-cool’ are now the things I like to embrace the most.
Alfonso was listed as one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” 2019 and Fast Company’s “Most Creative in Business 2019”
You studied architecture and design in London and NYC. Can you tell us the #1 thing you took from both those expe-
Prior to this role, Cobo served as an architectural designer in London, designing innovative spaces for education, hospitality and residential schemes. He also developed design strategies and brand identities as a visual designer in Spain.
SPRING/SUMMER 2018
