The Design Of Business | The Business of Design

We’re back with part 2 of our peek behind the curtain of the 2025 Aspen Business & Society Summit. And this time we are asking the big question. In a period of global turmoil, does leadership need a redesign? It’s clear that today’s leaders- whether of a business, a government or a family- require an unprecedented level of courage, vision and integrity. But what exactly does that type of leadership look and feel like? And can y...

Every summer, the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program’s annual summit gathers 200+ leaders from the worlds of business, science, government, design, and the arts at the Institute's Colorado campus. They convene for three days of panels, spontaneous conversations and knowledge sharing- all driven by a shared belief that business can shape and contribute to the health of our world. 

The 2025 Summit took place in July. ...

Instead of our usual episode, we're excited to share a podcast we think you'll love: Say More with Tulaine Montgomery. In her podcast, Tulaine speaks with people who are deeply committed to making the world a better place, while also taking care of themselves and supporting their communities. In this episode, she puts DB|BD host Ellen McGirt on the other side of the mic! 

Ellen and Tulaine talked about many things that mat...

In a time where it's hard to feel hopeful, a new study has left leaders who value DEI aflutter with tentative optimism. It’s called The Risk of Retreat, conducted by Catalyst and the NYU Meltzer Center of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, it compiled data from surveys of 2,500 employees from across the U.S. on their thoughts about workplaces backtracking from their DEI policies. The study found that retreating from DEI poses...

In this episode of DB|BD, you’re in for a two for one– or in this case, a double double.

First up, host Ellen McGirt sits down with Michael C. Bush, the CEO of Great Place to Work. Every year, Great Place to Work sends out a survey to 23 million people across 170 countries to ask them how valued and respected they feel at work. Companies that score well on the survey are bestowed with the honor of being- you guessed it- a certified ...

Ethan Marcotte is a web designer who may be best known for coining the term “responsive design” in 2010 – which turned out to be a prescient manifesto for the quest to design beautiful, accessible, and effective digital experiences everywhere. Ethan’s also a compassionate web designer and a prolific writer. His most recent book is “You Deserve A Tech Union,” a treatise on the rise of the labor movement in tech.

Ethan also recently s...

Debbie Millman is a shapeshifting creative who does a little bit of just about everything. She is a writer, designer, educator, artist, brand consultant and host of the podcast Design Matters- which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Last month, Debbie also published a beautiful new book: Love Letter to a Garden. It details her journey into gardening through her signature illustrations, creative vignettes and recipes from h...

Sana Javeri Kadri is the founder of Diaspora Co., a single origin spice company that is revolutionizing the 500 year old $5 billion spice industry. Their mission is to “put money, equity and power into the best regenerative spice farms across South Asia, and bring wildly delicious, hella potent flavors into your home cooking.” In just 8 years in business, Diaspora Co. has put money, equity and power into 140 farms into countries ac...

Jon M. Chu is a director, producer and screenwriter. Along with both parts of the Wicked movie adaptation, he directed Crazy Rich Asians, Step Up 2 and In the Heights. In a special live episode of DB|BD, Jon joins Ellen McGirt onstage at the Great Place to Work For All Summit, which took place in Las Vegas on April 10th-12th, 2025. 

Jon details how he went from  a child of immigrants with a Sharper Image film mixer making bar mitzva...

Tony Bynum is bilingual. He can speak the language of both business and design, a skill that makes him a unique leader in our industry. 

Tony is the director of the Institute for Design’s new ID Academy, where he is also a professor of practice. Previously, he founded the Northwestern Mutual Design Thinking Center of Excellence in Milwaukee, WI where he was Principal Senior Director of Experience Design. 

In this episode, Tony shares...

Tara Nathan is the EVP of Digital Solutions for Development at Mastercard and the founder of Mastercard’s Community Pass- a digital infrastructure that connects remote agricultural communities to governments, NGOs and the private sector. Community Pass currently serves 6 million farmers across India and East Africa and has an ambitious plan to reach 30 million by 2027.

In this episode, Tara tells host Ellen McGirt about creating an ...

Welcome to the 12th season of DB|BD. This season we are Designing for the Unknown. 

Michael Eliason of Larch Lab is an architect, researcher, writer and urbanist based in Seattle He’s a self-described activist for dense, livable, affordable, and sustainable cities and the author of Building for People: Designing Livable, Affordable, Low-Carbon Communities. 

In the aftermath of the fires in Southern California, Michael helps host Elle...

Ovetta Sampson is the Director of User Experience Machine Learning at Google. In December 2023, Business Insider named Ovetta to their AI 100, a list of the 100 most influential people working in artificial intelligence. Her inclusion on that list is a refreshing addition. Ovetta approaches her work with generative AI and machine learning as an activist, with a commitment to humanity and ethics. 

In the final interview episode of th...

Jorge Fontanez is the CEO of B Lab, a non-profit network that believes business can be a force for good. B Lab is best known for certifying B Corps, companies that meet high standards of social and environmental performance and accountability. To become a B Corp, companies need to be transparently addressing things like DEI, their own climate footprint and labor conditions. There are currently just over 9,000 B Corps in 102 countri...

Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer prize winning poet, professor and librettist who served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2017-2019. She’s published five poetry collections, two librettos and one memoir-manifesto. She is also a Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard. Her most recent Libretto for the opera The Righteous is currently running at the Santa Fe Opera house through August 13th.

Pulsing through T...

In this episode of DB|BD Ellen McGirt and Jessica Helfand talk with two extraordinary women from two seemingly different corners of the design world: Dionna Dorsey and Olivia Peebles. We say “seemingly” because, while they occupy different design disciplines, they approach their work in similar ways. They are both multidisciplinary designers with the hearts and souls of artists whose visuals bring to life what they and their collab...

Twenty years ago, Shamina Singh took what might seem like an unlikely leap from a decade-long career as a labor and political organizer into an executive position at one of the world’s biggest financial institutions. To Singh, this leap was a logical next step in her fight for equity and inclusion. She is now the co-founder and president of Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth. The Center, which celebrated its 10th anniversary ...

The WNBA is both the moment and a movement.  Approximately 400,000 fans attended WNBA games during the first month of the 2024 season, the highest first month attendance in 26 years. An average of 1.32 million viewers are tuning into each game. A historic rookie class that includes Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark are bringing new eyeballs to a game that has some of the most dedicated fan bases in professional sports. The league also ...

Richard Buery is the CEO of Robin Hood, New York City’s largest poverty fighting organization. It supports high-impact community organizations and partners with state and local governments to elevate New Yorkers out of poverty. In 2023 alone, Robin Hood invested $129 million in 200 carefully selected poverty fighting organizations. And New Yorkers need this support more than ever before. Robin Hood’s 2024 Poverty Tracker, released ...