Season 2 of This Is A Prototype: The Design Leadership Podcast is underway! This opening episode is a special two-part discussion featuring design leaders Kate Aronowitz of GV (Google Ventures) and Robert Fabricant of Dalberg. 

In part 1, we dig into Kate’s and Robert’s design backstories, and discuss the growth and expansion of design as a practice and a profession in the last two decades, including the important issue of leadership succession. We also begin to explore Robert’s recent Fast Company articles about the state of design leadership. Part 2 of the episode will post in your podcast feed early next week.

Season 2 of This is a Prototype: The Design Leadership Podcast is coming soon! 

The practice and profession of design in scaled companies continues to evolve in unexpected ways, and the role of the design leader in that evolution is more important than ever to the success of our teams and organizations. 

In Season 2 of This is a prototype, host Doug Powell continues to speak to the top design leaders in the industry about their life and career journeys into design. And he broadens the scope to explore cultural intersections in design; how design leaders are driving change in their communities; and how emerging technologies are changing our practices and our teams.

Doug's guests in season 2 will include:
Kaleena Sales
Sadie Red Wing
Kate Aronowitz
Robert Fabricant
Rich Hollant
Bill Grant
Jonathan Hanahan 
...and many more!

My guests for this Season 1 finale episode are Doreen Lorenzo and Mbiyimoh Ghogomu.

Doreen Lorenzo is a pioneering design leader who is the Assistant Dean of the School of Design and Creative Technology at University of Texas, a role she started in 2016. Prior to joining UT, Doreen was the longtime President of Frog Design, one of the largest and most established global design consultancies in the world. Doreen is a columnist for Fast Company where she writes the Designing Women column profiling brilliant women in the design industry.

Mbiyimoh Ghogomu is the co-founder and CEO of Tradeblock, the marketplace for collectible sneakers. Founded in 2019 the company has amassed more than 250,000 users and over a million sneakers available for trade on its digital platform. Tradeblock has raised more than 10 million dollars in VC funding. Mbiyimoh founded the company with childhood friends Tony Malveaux and Darren Smith after starting his career as a content design intern at IBM Design.

This episode was recorded live at the offices of argodesign in Austin, Texas.

Supporting partner for the live event was Pearl, the digital platform for proactive, effective, and inclusive hiring.

My guests in this episode are two legendary design leaders, Ann Willoughby and Mauro Porcini.

Ann Willoughby is an AIGA Medalist who has been a leading voice in design for over five decades. In 1978 she founded Willoughby Design, one of the first woman-owned design firms in the US. In addition to her leadership of this award-winning firm, Ann has been an advocate for countless community organizations and academic programs throughout her career.

Mauro Porcini is the first-ever Chief Design Officer of PepsiCo where he is infusing design thinking into the company’s culture and leading a new approach to innovation by design that is impacting it’s vast portfolio of products and brands. Mauro is also the author of the book The Human Side of Innovation: The Power of People in Love with People.

We cover a remarkably wide breadth of topics from the important role leaders play in the building of company culture, to how designers respond to emerging technologies. Ann and Mauro share some delightful and inspiring stories about the people who have shaped their journeys as leaders.

I open the episode with a special bonus segment: A short clip of a conversation I had recently with Professor Omari Souza, founder of the State of Black Design conference, which is happening for the first time ever as a live, in-person event March 15-16 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Executive design recruiter Tom Scott is the founder of Verified, the publisher of the weekly newsletter Verified Insights, and the host of the new podcast, Verified Insider. Tom recently interviewed me for a future episode of Verified Insider, and in this episode I combine my interview of Tom for my podcast, with a preview of his interview of me for his podcast.

Tom and I discuss the reasons design leadership roles are often not set up for success—from inadequate funding and resources, to scoping of the mission, to lack of clarity around what value design can actually bring. Tom explores the critical role recruiters can play in helping companies shape their vision for design leadership.

Rama Gheerawo is the director of the Helen Hamlyn Center for Design at the Royal College of Art in the UK, and the author of a book that should be on all of our reading lists, Creative Leadership, Born from Design. In his book, Rama asks not only whether designers can actually be leaders, but whether we can in fact be better leaders because of our creative capabilities and qualities. If you’ve listened to any previous episodes of this podcast, you know that this is one of the central questions I’ve been asking with all of my guests.

In this episode, Rama and I go deep on the epidemic of impostor syndrome among design leaders, and we explore his framework for creative leadership that’s built on the principles of Empathy, Clarity and Creativity. Rama also shares with us some inspiring world leaders who embody these principles.

“How is design infiltrating business in a new way? How is it reaching every inch of the of the business?"
—Nicole Gull-McElroy

What are the central stories in the design industry today, and how is the business media covering them?

In this POV Edition, I speak with journalist Nicole Gull-McElroy, who reports on the intersection of business and design for Fortune, Fast Company, and Wired, among other publications. Nicole was the lead editor for Fortune’s “By Design” newsletter, and last January she wrote an excellent article for Fast Company examining the effects of designer layoffs in the tech industry, which is one of the tangents we explore together in this wide-ranging conversation.

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Nicole Gull McElroy is a freelance journalist based outside of Philadelphia. Having completed her MS in journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Nicole started her career covering breaking news at various daily newspapers throughout the South and Midwest before taking staff jobs Inc. and Men's Journal magazines. She's written for Fortune, WIRED, and Fast Company, covering the ways business and design intersect, and for a time handled the Business x Design newsletter at Fortune.

“Leadership is really a generosity of spirit. When you care about not just yourself but you care about those around you, and you’re willing to go that extra mile to make others around you successful, it becomes clear you are ready for leadership.” —Janaki Kumar

Throughout Season 1 of the series, we’ve been digging deeply into the hidden, and often surprising characteristics of leadership. Those leadership qualities—actually those human qualities—that don’t come from a text book or a classroom. That’s one of the themes I explore with my guests on this episode, Janaki Kumar and Stefanie Kubanek.

Janaki Kumar is Head of Design at JP Morgan Chase’s Commercial Bank, and previously was head of the Design and Co-Innovation Center at SAP Labs. A thought-leader on design-led innovation in the enterprise, Janaki co-authored the book Gamification at Work – Designing Engaging Business Software. She has spoken at numerous industry conferences and academic programs, including Stanford’s Graduate School of Business where she teaches Customer Experience Design.

Stefanie Kubanek is a New York and Munich-based designer and design educator whose work is inspired by her native-German roots and global perspective. After initially studying goldsmithing, Stefanie completed her Industrial Design studies at the Royal College of Art, and went on to spend a decade at the London office of Pentagram. In addition to running her own design consultancy, she is now Visiting Senior Lecturer at Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in Ithaca, NY, and at Cornell Tech in NYC.

“I’m incredibly appreciative of the people that took a moment and said ‘here’s some things you’re probably gonna want to learn if you want to go farther.’”—Heidi Munc

Among the core themes that is emerging in Season 1 is the importance of mentorship, coaching, and sponsorship for design leaders. That’s one of the topics I explore in this wide-ranging discussion with my guests, Heidi Munc and Gus Granger.

Heidi Munc is a user experience expert and creative problem solver with over 20 years of experience. As Vice President of User Experience at Nationwide, Heidi leads a team of ~100 user experience professionals who are accountable for all aspects of experience strategy and design.

Gus Granger is an accomplished and award-winning brand strategist and graphic designer who has led both agency and in-house teams in an impressive range of leadership roles across various organizations including 70kft, VSA Partners, and Cyxtera.

“[Design leadership] requires a level of self-awareness…that is unlike the vast majority of other business functions.”

In episode 3 of This is a Prototype, I take a slightly different approach to the format with the first of what I’m calling “POV Editions.” Here I look at design leadership through a more analytical lens with the help of a single guest who has a distinctive…point of view on the field.

In this first POV Edition, I speak with design strategist, consultant, and community leader Sarah Clearwater, who I met on my recent visit to Auckland, New Zealand. Sarah is the founder of REFRAMR, a boutique design agency, and the instigator of the CX Collective, a vibrant community of designers and leaders in Auckland. She has also published Perspectives on Design & Leadership (available on her website linked above), an excellent report which surveys more than 25 design leaders across New Zealand and contains insights that extend globally.

Sarah and I explore the unique aspects of design in New Zealand, we discuss those important superpowers of design leaders, and we get into the often jarring transition design leaders face when going from “on the tools” to “on the team.”

Sarah Clearwater
Sarah is an accomplished design strategist and change agent who understands how to bridge the gap between design and business, elevate the value and impact of design work and help organisations navigate rapidly evolving markets.

With an international career spanning four countries, three languages, and two continents, Sarah has gained extensive experience in positioning organisations for success through customer-centered strategies. Over the past decade, her client list has included a diverse set of industries, including banking, insurance, telecommunications, FMCG, not-for-profit, government, and education.