Chief Design Officer School

After more than 20 years as a design executive at companies like Apple, Electronic Arts, USAA, and Nestlé, I noticed a persistent gap in how designers are prepared for leadership roles. While design education excels at teaching craft and process, it rarely addresses the business and political realities that determine whether design work creates actual value for an organization.

That's why I founded CDO School.

The Problem with Traditional Design Education

Most designers are taught to think about their work in terms of users, aesthetics, and functionality. But in my experience leading design teams and working with over 2,500 designers at companies like Google, Zillow, and Uber, I've seen that success requires a completely different skill set: the ability to translate design decisions into business language, navigate organizational politics, and demonstrate measurable value to executives who make budget and priority decisions.

These are skills that senior leaders rarely teach to designers. Not because they're secret, but because there's simply no structured way for designers to learn them outside of hard-won experience.

What CDO School Does Differently

CDO School focuses on practical business thinking for designers. Rather than academic theory, I share the frameworks and approaches I've used throughout my career to help design teams create value that executives actually recognize and reward.

The platform offers two core ways to engage:

• The CDO School Toolkit provides a complete library of courses, digital resources, workshop templates, and frameworks that designers can immediately apply to their work, from translating design value into business metrics to navigating the emotional and political aspects of organizational decision-making.
• The CDO School Collective is a learning network for senior designers and leaders. A quarterly reflection practice with a small group of peers from outside your normal circles where experienced designers can grow business savvy alongside peers facing similar challenges in their organizations.

Who CDO School Is For

I created CDO School specifically for experienced designers and leaders who are trying to figure out their next career move. Whether that's moving into design leadership, transitioning to a more strategic role, or simply becoming more effective in your current position, CDO School provides the business context and political awareness that traditional design education leaves out.

This isn't about becoming less of a designer. It's about becoming the kind of designer who can create change in organizations, influence executive decisions, and build a career on your own terms.

My Approach to Teaching

Everything at CDO School comes from real experience, not theory. I've written Business Thinking for Designers, developed proprietary frameworks like POKRs (Perspectives, Objectives, and Key Results), and distilled decades of executive-level insights into practical, actionable guidance.

The focus is always on what actually works in organizations, not what should work in an ideal world. Because ultimately, designers who understand business and organizational dynamics are designers who can create the most impact.