Doug Powell

As the Wallace Herndon Smith Visiting Designer, I teach two courses: Designing for Business in the undergraduate College of Design; and Designing Leadership in the Master of Design for HCI & Emerging Technology (MDes) graduate program. Through these courses I deepen my work to examine how design and designers are driving powerful and positive change for businesses and the broader culture; and how designers in leadership roles can accelerate and enhance that change.

Lead Lecturer for iF Design Academy, developing and teaching the course: Expanding Organizational Influence. This online experience is designed for established senior design leaders who want to develop the skills, behaviors, vocabulary, and methods to effectively navigate complex, scaled organizations and drive enterprise-wide impact. iF Design is the world’s most established and trusted design association, anchored by the prestigious iF Design Awards and the annual iF Design Trend Report.

Visiting lecturer in the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering Masters of Engineering in Design & Technology Innovation program. In this role I am working directly with students to examine the complexities and possibilities of human-centered design practices in complex organizations.

Honored to be a founding member of this distinguished group of global design leaders.

We are in the midst of an unprecedented time in the history of the design profession. Businesses are investing in design at rates never before seen—building scaled design teams of hundreds and even thousands of designers, and hiring design leaders into executive roles giving them influence and access at the highest levels. As an executive design leader myself, I’m fascinated by the experience of designers moving into these new leadership roles. For most of us this is completely uncharted territory, the jobs are often undefined and there is rarely a roadmap or playbook to help us succeed, so most of us have had to learn on the job. In each episode of This is a Prototype, I invite two design leaders who have traveled very different life and career journeys to share their stories, compare notes, and talk about what it takes to be a leader in this new era of design.

Lead instructor for Design Leadership at Scale professional development series on the Maven learning platform. This online course is ideal for established senior design leaders positioning themselves for future executive roles and career advancement. In this role I developed curriculum, curated the learning experience, and facilitated the course sessions. DLS Director+ is one of the most highly rated design leadership courses on the Maven platform.

Executive design leader, responsible for design leadership, design practices, and the global community of designers at IBM. Role includes extensive engagement with IBM clients across all industries and business sectors.

Among first cohort of IBM Distinguished Designers, an appointed leadership position that recognizes exemplary technical design expertise and leadership, with demonstrated innovation through design practices, initiative, technical vitality, and reputation. As executive leaders, Distinguished Designers are integral members of their business units’ executive teams, through which they advise and drive technical and business strategies across the company.

Executive design leader driving cross-disciplinary design teams to deliver awesome human and customer experiences and drive market-changing outcomes for IBM's healthcare business. Leads design and delivery for multiple product portfolios, including Watson Works, IBM's tool for organizations managing COVID return-to-workplace protocols.

Design Principal is a distinction for designers who’ve made substantial impact and have led transformational change at IBM, by advancing design through creating scalable and reusable artifacts, curriculum, and intellectual property across their business unit, service line, portfolio and/or studio. Design Principals make significant contributions to the community of design at IBM and actively advocate for the design profession within the industry.

Advisor for startup SaaS product that provides operational support for scaled UX research teams.

Served as an advisor to the Center for Social Design at MICA, working closely with students and faculty as they crafted their thesis projects.