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Today, design drives effective business strategy, but design education hasnt caught up. As companies scramble to digitally transform, adapt to the climate crisis, and navigate culture and trade wars, designs role has expandedmoving to the center of how organizations shape products, services, and systems. With this elevated role comes a sobering reality: Many design leaders feel increasingly out of their depth. Promoted for creative excellence, they suddenly find themselves navigating boardrooms, budgets, business models, and organizational change without the proper preparation. As Fast Company puts it, a generation of design leaders are in the midst of a big design freak-out, as many realize the creative confidence that propelled careers doesnt always translate into executive credibility. One senior design leader recently admitted on LinkedIn that they were unprepared to lead people, lead change, transform processes, make sound business decisions, or even understand how a company works. This isnt a failure of individual designers. Its a failure of the system that educates them. WHERE TRADITIONAL DESIGN EDUCATION STOPS SHORT Traditional design programs excel at teaching craft: visual communication, UX research, design thinking. But they rarely prepare graduates for the realities of organizational leadership; topics like business strategy, change management, or stakeholder alignment are often considered outside the domain of design education. Its not a matter of neglect. Its a matter of scope. Undergraduate- and graduate-level design programs arent meant to produce executives, just as undergraduate business degrees dont turn students into CEOs. Those leadership capabilities are built over time, and often require further training later in ones career. Yet while business leaders have long had access to MBAs, corporate academies, and executive development programs, design has had no equivalent, until now. THE RISE OF EXECUTIVE DESIGN EDUCATION Recent years have seen a wave of new programs spurred by this education gap. Indeed, my own employer, iF Design, last month launched the iF DESIGN ACADEMY. Drawing on decades of global design authority, the Academy develops leaders who combine creative excellence with business fluency. Our courses push participants to build skills in leadership, strategy, sustainability, and emerging technology. The goal is simple: Help mid- to senior-level design leaders grow into the role todays landscape requires. FOUNDATIONS OF EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP These programs arent about turning designers into MBAs. They aim to cultivate a hybrid mindsetone that blends creativity with executive acumen. Core skills taught include: Understanding how businesses create and measure value Communicating with influence across organizational functions Navigating metrics, org structures, and operational complexity Driving change in environments that resist it Leading teams with psychological safety and purpose These arent nice to have skills, but the foundations of effective leadership in any domain. Doug Powell, lead lecturer at the iF DESIGN ACADEMY and former VP of design at IBM, captures the challenge well: While many design leadership courses focus on the management and performance of the teamwhich is critically importantmy course focuses on the skills, behaviors, and tactics of navigating the broader ecosystem of leadership in complex organizations. This outward focus is too often dismissed in leadership training, but without these essential skills, leaders will continue to struggle. DESIGNS POWER IS REALBUT ONLY WITH LEADERS WHO CAN HARNESS IT McKinseys widely cited 2018 report, The Business Value of Design, found that companies in the top quartile of design performance outpaced industry benchmarks by as much as 2:1. Good design drives growth, customer loyalty, and competitive advantage, but only when leaders embed it into business strategy. Design thinkers often serve as translators, connecting human-centered thinking to business outcomes. To succeed in this task, design leaders need more than intuition, they need executive fluency. As Katrina Alcorn, managing director at Accenture Song, put it: The backlash against design is a de facto backlash against innovation. As Alcorn reminds us in her piece Good Design Is (Still) Good Business, companies that slash design roles for short-term savings risk long-term irrelevance. Good design creates real business value, but only if design leaders have the authority and tools to lead. Today, design extends far beyond aesthetics. It shapes how organizations think, operate, and deliver value in a volatile world. That responsibility grows larger every year, and our investment in design leaders must grow with it. Executive design education is not a luxuryit is essential to unlocking designs full power to drive progress, resilience, and a better future for all. Lisa Gralnek is global head of sustainability and impact for iF Design, managing director of iF Design USA Inc., and creator/host of the award-winning podcast, FUTURE OF XYZ.
Category:
E-Commerce
According to the National Association of Corporate Directors, boardrooms today face a dizzying list of risks: economic volatility, geopolitical tensions, cybersecurity threats, technological disruption, and a tightening labor market. But the one risk too often overlooked? That businesses rely on healthy people and healthy communities. Despite spending more on healthcare than any other nation, the U.S. is falling behind on nearly every major health indicator. Life expectancy is declining, chronic illness is rising, and access to care remains uncertain for one in four Americans. These arent just public health issues. Theyre economic issues. They weaken our workforce, strain businesses, threaten national security, and erode trust in institutions. The equation is simple: Healthy communities fuel healthy businesses. One Deloitte report estimates that improving health across the U.S. could add $2.8 trillion to GDP by 2040, with corporate profits possibly increasing by $763 billion. In todays environment, companies prioritizing health attract better talent, earn more trust, and stay more competitive. Its a business risk no leader can afford to ignore. FROM CHARITY TO STRATEGY For too long, corporate social responsibility was treated as an afterthought. A check written here, a charitable initiative there. But stakeholders are demanding more. A recent survey found that 84% of Americans believe corporations have a responsibility to strengthen the communities where they operate, and 72% say those corporations should help solve major systemic issues. Today, employees, customers, and investors expect it. Businesses are being judged not only by quarterly earnings, but by how they show up in communities. In a polarized world, trust is fragile. And once lost, it is hard to regain. Thats why business leaders can no longer view community health as charity. It must be seen for what it is: strategy. WHAT WORKS At CHC: Creating Healthier Communities, Ive seen firsthand what happens when companies get it right. Weve had the privilege of working with businesses that are moving beyond charitable donations to co-lead real solutions: Weve partnered with Ameriprise Bank to host a series of workshops to advance mental wellness in the workplace. Ardelyx is facilitating community engagement activities to increase access to services. The Samaritan Health Project, Inc. hosted health fairs and connected residents to pharmacies that provided discounted rates on prescriptions. Hilti launched Mental Health Mondays for employees. These leaders recognize the truth: When community health declines, so does the bottom line. These efforts succeed because they are local, collaborative, and sustained. They arent acts of charity. They are smart investments in a healthier, more productive future. COLLABORATE FOR GREATER IMPACT In the last century, value was measured almost exclusively in financial terms, such as quarterly returns, market share, and shareholder wealth. But that equation is shifting. Today, the true currency of competitive advantage lies in the ability to collaborate across boundaries, earn trust in a skeptical world, and harness data for collective impact. Thats the vision behind our new Leadership Council for Healthier Communities (LCHC)the first national council of its kind designed to bring leaders from business, philanthropy, health systems, and grassroots organizations together to cocreate solutions and measure results. LCHC isnt about replacing what companies are already doing. Its about connecting, aligning, and scaling those effortswhether thats addressing maternal health, tackling obesity and cardiometabolic disease, strengthening nutrition and food security, or ethically leveraging new tools like artificial intelligence to improve access to care. In short: Its a place where organizations across sectors can collaborate to turn commitments into outcomes, and strategy into results. A STRONGER FUTURE, TOGETHER Declining community health isnt an abstract concernits already hitting the bottom line. And unless businesses act, the costs will only grow. But the reverse is also true. When companies invest in healthier communities, employees thrive, talent pipelines expand, and customer trust deepens. The companies that thrive in the next decade will be those that treat community health as strategynot as philanthropy or PR. That work cant happen in silos. It requires leaders willing to collaborate across sectors, share what works, and hold themselves accountable for results. The next generation of value creators will be those who partner across boundaries, invest in the health of people and places, and make trust their competitive edge. Thats the vision behind the Leadership Council for Healthier Communities, a platform where business leaders can scale what works and unlock growth that benefits everyone. When we invest in healthier communities, we dont just create stronger neighborhoodswe create stronger businesses, stronger economies, and a stronger future. Because the health of business and the health of communities are inextricably linked. Jean Accius, PhD is president and CEO at CHC: Creating Healthier Communities.
Category:
E-Commerce
I recently spoke to a donor who reviewed a batch of proposals from different groupsdifferent names, different logos, but nearly the same projects. Teams had reinvented the same wheel in parallel. Individually, some of those projects might get funded. Collectively, the sector missed the chance to pool efforts and solve a larger piece of the problem. That felt wrong, not because anyone was bad, but because our systems make it easier to duplicate than to unite. Heres what should terrify donors: Even as funding tightens, duplicated projects still get financed while collaborative funds report backing organizations that figured out how to work together, with $23 billion in annual support. WHY WE BUILD IN SILOS First, complexity encourages focus. Its human to take the problem you can manage and try to perfect it. Building a consortium feels messy and risky. Second, funding mechanics favor tidy, single-org proposalsgrant windows, scoring rubrics, and reporting templates push teams into solo asks. Third, survival instincts kick in: Leaders protect jobs and short-term stability. Fourth, donors often prefer neat comparables; its easier to evaluate and communicate about a single-organization proposal than to underwrite a messy, multipartner bet. Those incentives produce dozens of similar pilots, fragmented data, duplicated engineering, and wasted momentum. The cost isnt just administrative friction; its slower adoption of useful tools and weaker influence at policy tables where a unified voice would matter. EVIDENCE: JOINT BETS WIN There were dozens of AI-for-good panels and side sessions at the United Nations General Assembly this year, but no single calendar. Everyone scrambled, duplicating efforts, and wasting hours trying to track what was happening where. We published an open list of eventsa basic piece of shared infrastructureand the relief was immediate. If we cant coordinate a calendar, how will we synchronize shared models, data standards, or joint deployments across countries? This isnt abstract. Two other practical cases show what coordinated work unlocks. The Systems Transformation Hub saw several climate organizations realize they were spending most of their time fundraising rather than changing policy. They pooled efforts, cocreated a shared roadmap, and unlocked far more capital and traction than any member could have achieved alone. That shift, from isolated asks to a joint strategy, created real forward movement. Googles Flood Hub teaches a related lesson on adoption: Building a model is not the same as embedding it into systems. Even with brand and engineering muscle, tech needs coordinated deployment. Governments, local NGOs, and scientists formed a collaborative around the tool so it could be used operationallynot just demoed. That adoption work turned capability into impact. WHAT REAL COLLABORATIVES MUST DO Collaboration is not logos on a slide. It is actual working alliances built on practical choices: Shared infrastructure, not replicated widgets. Build once, deploy many timescommon models, APIs, and clear data contracts so local teams adapt rather than rebuild. Coordinated fundraising, not competing pitches. One unified ask with transparent allocation reduces transaction costs and unlocks deeper capital. Backbone governance. Someone must hold procurement, compliance, and opsthe boring glue that keeps partners moving. Shared measurement and safe data practices. Established metrics and data agreements let partners iterate and credibly report joint outcomes. Funders who reward collectives. Change scoring rubrics to favor system change, and long-term stewardship over tidy outputs. These are governance decisions. Theyre not glamorous, but they determine whether pilots plateau or scale. WEVE DONE THIS WRONG, TOO Im not writing from a pedestal. At Tech To The Rescue, we have made the same mistakes, matchmaking that at times created more iterations than systems. We also see the alternative: projects that plug into shared services, adopt common standards, and scale faster. The tech side is also unlocking quickly. Many off-the-shelf tools now cover a large share of operational needs, but that potential only becomes impact if the sector coordinates adoption. Thats why were convening partners this season to test an AI-for-good ecosystem, a minimum viable product for shared infrastructure, pooled fundraising, and collective accountability. Its operational testing, not optics. DONORS: CHANGE THE INCENTIVES Donors, this piece is for you. If you fund this space, please examine whether your forms, timelines, and scoring favor tidy, single-org asks or whether they actively reward collective proposals, backbone support, and multi-year, flexible capital. Consider creating grant lines specifically for collaboratives. Pool funds with other donors to underwrite backbone organizations; fund the integration workprocurement, ops, governancethat rarely looks glamorous but makes scale possible. Also consider directing funds toward policy, watchdogs, and capacity-buildingthe systems layer that keeps shared tech safe, accountable and effective. If your organization wants impact more than visibility, ask whether the next grant helps the sector or mainly your institution. If you build tech, ask whether your next sprint will be useful to 10 deployments, and if so, design it to be shared. We have the tools, talent, and urgency. The remaining barriers are cultural and structural: the humility to share credit, governance to coordinate, and funding models to pay for integration. Because the problems we care about wont wait while each of us finishes our own version of the same thing. Jacek Siadkowski is cofounder and CEO of Tech To The Rescue.
Category:
E-Commerce
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