Upon being appointed corporate head of the IBM Design Program in 1989, Tom Hardy, initiated a strategic design management effort, in collaboration with IBM design consultant Richard Sapper, to return to the roots of the IBM Design Program first established in 1956 by Eliot Noyes, Paul Rand and Charles Eames. The intent was to reprise IBM's brand image with customer experience-driven quality, approachability and contemporary product innovation. The highly successful IBM ThinkPad was the first product to emerge from this strategy in 1992 and, together with other innovative, award-winning products that followed, served to position design as a strategic asset for IBM's brand turnaround efforts initiated in 1993 by newly appointed CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.