The Business of Design: Scaling Human-Centered Practices in Complex Organizations

Join us for a special opportunity to hear from world-renowned design thought leader and Sam Fox School alum Doug Powell. Powell’s talk will touch on design practice, diversity in the field, and design transformation in the enterprise.

Powell, BFA ‘88, is an award-winning executive design leader and consultant with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. A recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Sam Fox School of Design at Washington University in St. Louis, Powell is a lecturer, commentator and thought leader on design issues. He has presented at a variety of global conferences, forums, and universities including Beirut Design Week in Lebanon, Fortune’s Brainstorm Design in Singapore, and Yale School of Management. He was on the jury of the 2018 Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards.

Between 2011-2013 Powell served as the national president of AIGA, the professional association for design in the United States, the largest and most established design organization in the world.

In the past decade Powell has served as Vice President of Design at IBM and Expedia Group, where he oversaw design practices, design systems, designer career and leadership programs, as well as the scaling of cross-functional design thinking practices across these companies.