Design Leadership Ignited: Elevating Design at Scale

Design leadership at scale requires leaders who design the design function, establish a thriving environment for the creative team, and shape the design organization to drive progress, advance innovation, and enhance meaningful customer experiences.

  To examine the foundations of successful design leadership, the authors performed extensive in-depth interviews with design leaders working for Fortune 500 organizations across industries. Based on these insights, Design Leadership Ignited delineates a pathway to design excellence, which includes establishing a forward-looking strategy and an adequate organizational structure for the design function, empowering the design team, and scaling the impact of design across the entire organization. This book takes the position that a core challenge in the journey towards design excellence is the need to recognize and balance the often-contradictory objectives and activities that design leaders encounter. Combining their practitioner experience and research, the authors provide a framework to embrace the complexity of design leadership that will elevate design at scale.

Eric Quint is former Senior Vice President and Chief Brand and Design Officer at 3M Company (United States) and former Vice President and Head of Design Management and Consulting at Royal Philips (the Netherlands). Gerda Gemser is Full Professor and Chair of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne (Australia). Giulia Calabretta is Associate Professor in Strategic Value of Design at Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands).