Doug Powell is an award-winning designer, lecturer, commentator, and thought leader on design issues. He has presented at various global conferences, forums, and universities, and served as the national president of AIGA. In the past decade, Doug has served as Vice President of Design at IBM and Expedia Group, where he oversaw design practices, design systems, designer career and leadership programs, and scaling cross-functional design thinking practices across the companies. Doug is the producer and host of This is a Prototype: The Design Leadership Podcast.
Doug is the Lead Lecturer for Expanding Organizational Influence.
What excites you most about teaching at the iF DESIGN ACADEMY?
The global scale and reach of iF Design is particularly exciting to me. No other design organization has the credibility, integrity, and operational capacity to build a truly global leadership academy. I’m excited to tap into that network to connect design leaders from around the world to each other.
Why is your course especially relevant for design leaders right now?
While many design leadership courses focus on the management and performance of the subordinate team—which is critically important—my 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.
What is your teaching philosophy?
Everyone learns in different ways. Some people are visual learners (that’s me!), but others learn best by hearing stories, while others still prefer reading books or articles, or analyzing data. I always try to recognize this core idea and to build many different ways for participants in my courses to connect with the curriculum.
What personal career experiences will you bring to this course, and how will participants benefit from them?
Quite simply, I have traveled the road that the participants in my courses are traveling now. I faced the challenges, barriers and friction of building a career as a design leader in environments where I was not understood or appreciated—and I had no option but to “learn on the job.” Now I’m able to bring those learnings to the participants in my courses. This converts the course material from abstract and academic to make it real and relatable.
How did you choose the guest experts for this course, and how will participants benefit from their experience?
I am always seeking a diverse range of professional and personal experiences, areas of expertise, and points of view in my guest experts. My guests will come from a variety of industries, global regions, and career paths. This will ensure that participants in my course will see that great design leadership happens in many different ways.