About
Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader 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, and the 2014 Fellow Award from AIGA Minnesota, Doug 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 Doug served as the national president of AIGA, the professional association for design, the largest and most established design organization in the world. 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, as well as the scaling of cross-functional design thinking practices across the companies. He is the producer and host of This Is A Prototype: The Design Leadership Podcast. Alongside his leadership training and coaching practice, Doug serves on the faculty of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art at Washington University in St. Louis.
Talk & Workshop details
Stepping Up to Design Leadership: Grow Your Influence & Advance Your Career
About this talk
Many UX designers aspire to senior leadership roles, but the path is challenging and rarely clear. Moving beyond a craft-focused role requires new skills, new mindsets, and a broader understanding of how organizations actually work. In this Grand Keynote talk, executive design leader and educator Doug Powell will draw from his experience as VP of Design at both IBM and Expedia, as well as his highly-rated iF Design Academy course Expanding Organizational Influence to explore how designers can begin stepping into leadership long before they have the formal job title. Drawing from his work as an educator and coach, he shares the patterns he sees in designers who successfully expand their influence. You’ll learn how to apply your unique 'design superpowers' to build trust, align teams, and drive enterprise-wide impact.
Key takeaway
- Understand the forces reshaping design leadership and why today's leaders need a broader set of skills.
- Recognize the common patterns designers encounter as they grow into leadership, including the challenges of greater responsibility.
- Leverage your design superpowers—empathy, storytelling, facilitation, and systems thinking—to expand your influence.
- Navigate organizations more effectively by building trust, creating shared objectives, and strengthening cross-functional partnerships.
- Accelerate your leadership journey with practical habits that grow your influence long before you have the title.
Making the Case: Measuring and Articulating the Value of Design
About this workshop
Design leaders are increasingly expected to demonstrate the impact of their work, not just through great experiences for users, but through outcomes that matter to the business. Yet many leaders struggle to translate design outcomes into the language of strategy, metrics, and organizational value. iF Design Academy Lead Lecturer Doug Powell shares practical frameworks for measuring and articulating the value of design. Participants will explore how to connect the work of design teams to business goals, identify meaningful metrics across inputs, throughput, and outputs, and communicate impact through clear, compelling narratives. The session combines practical examples with collaborative discussion and activities—informed by Doug’s work developing design leaders globally through his iF Design Academy course Expanding Organizational Influence—to help designers strengthen their ability to advocate for design and expand their influence within their organizations.
Workshop key takeaways
- Apply a clear, practical framework for measuring design across inputs, throughput, outputs, and outcomes.
- Select meaningful metrics that align design work with business strategy.
- Measure organizational improvements—including alignment, quality, speed, and collaboration—not just end-user outcomes.
- Build compelling, data-informed narratives that demonstrate design's contribution to business success.
- Communicate design's enterprise-wide impact to executives and cross-functional stakeholders.