Episodes

  • S2 • E1 (part one) Kate Aronowitz + Robert Fabricant

    S2 • E1 (part one) Kate Aronowitz + Robert Fabricant
    May 14 2024
    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.
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    38 mins
  • Season 2: Coming Soon!

    Season 2: Coming Soon!
    Apr 30 2024
    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!
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    3 mins
  • ThIs A Prototype: S1•E10 Doreen Lorenzo & Mbiyimoh Ghogomu (plus Pearl)

    ThIs A Prototype: S1•E10 Doreen Lorenzo & Mbiyimoh Ghogomu (plus Pearl)
    Dec 5 2023
    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.
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • This Is A Prototype: S1•E9 Ann Willoughby & Mauro Porcini (plus State of Black Design Conference)

    This Is A Prototype: S1•E9 Ann Willoughby & Mauro Porcini (plus State of Black Design Conference)
    Nov 20 2023
    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.
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    55 mins
  • This Is A Prototype: S1•E8 Tom Scott

    This Is A Prototype: S1•E8 Tom Scott
    Nov 7 2023
    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.
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    35 mins
  • This Is A Prototype: S1•E7 Rama Gheerawo

    This Is A Prototype: S1•E7 Rama Gheerawo
    Oct 24 2023
    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.
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    50 mins
  • This Is A Prototype: S1•E6 Nicole Gull-McElroy

    This Is A Prototype: S1•E6 Nicole Gull-McElroy
    Oct 10 2023
    “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.
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    34 mins
  • This Is A Prototype: S1•E5 Janaki Kumar & Stefanie Kubanek

    This Is A Prototype: S1•E5 Janaki Kumar & Stefanie Kubanek
    Sep 26 2023
    “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.
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    48 mins