By Ekaterina Solomeina, Co-founder, Future London Academy. Future London Academy’s mission is to erase borders between creative communities from different countries and to inspire people around the world to achieve more every single day.
It’s a really exciting time to work in design. Companies are finally realizing the power design can bring to the business and since McKinsey’s report showed that design-led organizations have higher revenue growth and outperform their peers, many creatives are forging the path to progress to C-level positions.
But to earn that seat at the board table, designers are equipping themselves with the business skills they need to become Design Leaders. Designers have always been successful in driving the big vision for a product or brand, but now in addition to that, designers need to be able to deliver tangible numbers of how much additional revenue their decisions can bring the business or how much cost will be saved. If a company measures success in LTV and CAC, ROI of the new campaign and increasing share of TAM, designers need to be able to link every creative design to these metrics.
In 2021, industry leaders were brought together by Future London Academy to do exactly that: to teach Design Leadership to the brightest creative minds from around the world. Future London Academy selected top industry leaders to deliver their Executive Program for Design Leaders, the equivalent of an MBA for creatives and designers with 15+ years of experience.
Phil Burton, COO of Bloom & Wild, Emma Barratt, Executive Creative Director at Wolff Olins, Steve Buzz Pearce SVP of Design at Checkout.com, Guy Duncan, CTO at Tide, Marina Willer and Yuri Suzuki, Partners at Pentagram and many more industry experts curated and delivered intensive, in-person modules to an incredible cohort of international creatives.
Leadership was a core focus throughout the Program, from an in-depth, psychological understanding of Trust and Emotional Agility, to comprehending the intricacies of Business Strategy, Pricing and Data, to a groundbreaking look at the Future of Leadership through non-western models of culture and society.
Rather than learn from dense textbooks and heavy, theoretical lectures, the cohort brought their own, real experiences into the room. Below are some pieces of wisdom we wanted to highlight.
In the Executive Program for Design Leaders, industry leaders have already begun to share real, tangible learnings that lead designers are bringing straight back to board rooms around the world, changing the way they – and their companies – thing about Design Leadership, and what it means to be a Design-Led Business.
Applications to the 2022 Executive Program for Design Leaders are now open and you can apply here.
