As part of our series on the future of design and Design Thinking, Filiberto Amati of Amati & Associates and I interviewed Bisi Williams, co-founder of Massive Change Network in Chicago with Bruce Mau, founder and host of the Health2049 podcast series, and a writer. Bisi inspired us about our preferable futures and informed us about her future plans, that are based on her unique vision of what design will be, and how Design Thinking will evolve.

Satyendra Pakhalé is an established international design leader, from his native India to his chosen city of residence and practice, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from products to buildings. He recently published “Culture of Creation” with nai010 publishers of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, his first rich monograph, covering 25 years of his body of work, with critical contributions by Paola Antonelli, Aric Chen, Juhani Pallasmaa, Jacques Barsac, TizianaProietti, and Stefano Marzano. Filiberto Amati of Amati & Associates and I interviewed him on his vision on the future of Design Thinking, his legacy in design practice, and his unique multicultural perspective on creativity, design trends, and what lies ahead for the rest of us, by design and beyond.

With his formative years grounded in the academic tradition of Politecnico di Milano and being a founder of the Strategic Design activities at Domus Academy in Milan and a co-founder of the Design Faculty at TU Eindhoven, Stefano Marzano is credited for leading one of the best design organisations in post-WWII, the Philips Design 1991–2011 team, to then taking roles like Founding Dean at THNK School of Creative Leadership in Amsterdam, with Menno van Dijk, formerly at McKinsey, and Chief Design Officer at Electrolux in Stockholm, Sweden. Not to be forgotten, his collaborations with darling brands of contemporary lifestyle and taste-making giants like Nike, Levi’s, Renault, Swatch, Alessi, Cappellini, and masters of Italian design like Alessandro Mendini, Michele De Lucchi, Andrea Branzi, and more. Stefano recently discussed with Filiberto Amati of Amati & Associates and myself his vision of a future beyond design, rethinking Design Thinking beyond the classic notions of industrial design and people-centric design. He sketched his vision of “High Design 4.0” with elements of a possible manifesto, towards new concepts of design for life where utopias will leverage dystopias, and where science will meet humanities, by design.

With a design leadership profile she developed over 26 years, five countries and three continents, from the U.S.A. to Singapore, and a number of positions at Philips, Lucent, and Electrolux, including the role of Chief Design Officer in Stockholm, Pernilla Johansson, co-founder of the Centre for Organisational Creativity, has established herself as a reference name in corporate design, industrial design, and international thought leadership. Pernilla spoke to Filiberto Amati of Amati & Associates and me about the future of Design Thinking and design, the critical role of creativity in organisations, and her third wave of professional commitment for companies and people.

From ignition to elevation, design is an enterprise force that goes well beyond aesthetics and ideation, unfolding new ways of working, from tactics to strategy. Design embodies the very soul of the brand and the inspiration of future business by connecting what is meaningful for people to what technology will make possible. Together with Filiberto Amati, MBA, founder of Amati & Associates, I interviewed Eric Quint, formerly Chief Brand and Design Officer at 3M Company, and co-author of the recently launched book “Design Leadership Ignited. Elevating Design at Scale” by Stanford University Press, together with Gerda Gemser, Full Professor and Chair of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne, and Giulia Calabretta, Associate Professor in Strategic Value of Design, Delft University of Technology, on how to embrace the complexities of design leadership and its future role.

Together with Filiberto Amati of Amati & Associates, we had the privilege to speak with Paris-based, former financial investor and digital entrepreneur, Aurelien van Berten, COO and co-founder of Wabel and NEEDL.co, both very successful global scale ups in the realm of digital matchmaking for B-to-B business development, with particular focus on FCMG and packaging. — WABEL offers global consumer goods buyers a total sourcing solution. With pre-scheduled targeted B2B meetings on the SUMMITS and its platform NEEDL.co, buyers discover new matching business partners and suppliers reduce their time to market. In this respect, after a late 2020 online fatigue phase, the global marketplace, where Aurelien…

As part of our “Design Thinkers” series on the future of events, Filiberto Amati of Amati and Associates, Warsaw, and I had the privilege to interview world-class talent, global citizen, and digital visionary Hugo Pilate, program manager at PLACE Network and co-conspirator at Banlieu du Turfu, formerly with Quicksand, India, currently independent Service Design consultant between smart cities and digital futures, between Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and Paris. This was an opportunity for Hugo to share his insights and ideas, and for us to learn about different roadmaps and landscapes of future events.

Kitty Suidman, alumni of the Design Academy Eindhoven, is Director Colours, Materials, Finish (CMF) and Director Product Sustainability as Sonos, the inventive home audio digital entertainment manufacturer based in the U.S.A. and of global reach and fame. After deservedly featuring her in my earlier Medium article on female leadership at Philips Design, that enjoyed wide interest and positive reactions, although sometimes polarizing. Kitty was pivotal in establishing the Visual Trend Analysis competence in Asia Pacific, with her tenure at Philips Design continental headquarters in Hong Kong, and followed up with a brilliant career at T- Mobile, after Motorola in Chicago, with my fellow countryman, Marco Susani, and Lisa Yong, now at Y Studios, San Francisco, recently appointed as Content Director, Consumer Tech, at WGSN, before successfully landing in her current Seattle-based studio in Sonos. Furthermore, Kitty is committed to preferable futures in various roles and commitments, e.g. as Board President of BEST (Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking). Together with Filiberto Amati of Amati & Associates, we engaged in a dialog with Kitty about the future of public events, team meetings, company culture, design futures, and much more.

Every modern generation has a designer of choice and of reference, who captures the Zeitgeist and delivers the vision that stands for a better future, by design. After redefining what graphic design can do in the 1990s desktop revolution with his earlier studio, Bruce Mau Design, Toronto, Bruce Mau, author of “MAU MC24”, Phaidon, founder of Massive Change Network, Chicago, and currently Innovator in Residence at Freeman Company, Dallas, TX, the event sector leader, is one of such design leaders, and his time is now. With Filiberto Amati, of Amati & Associates, on 16/09/2021 we engaged in a deep dialog in a unique LinkedIn event, here on YouTube as a clip, as part of our series on the future of events as part of our extracurricular research commitments to foresight and futures.