The rise of the Chief Design Officer: why design leadership matters more than ever.

Nearly a decade ago, I wrote an article titled 3 Reasons Why Every Company Needs a Chief Design Officer. At the time, my argument was relatively straightforward: if organizations genuinely believe design is a strategic driver of innovation, customer experience, differentiation and business growth, then design leadership deserves a meaningful voice at the executive table.

What is particularly interesting today is how much the landscape has changed. We are now seeing organizations elevate design leadership at precisely the moment when artificial intelligence, digital transformation, increasingly complex customer ecosystems and rapidly changing expectations are reshaping how organizations create value.

And perhaps one of the strongest signals yet has come from somewhere I certainly was not anticipating when I wrote the original article: the White House.

From corporate design leadership to national design leadership

On August 21, 2025, the White House issued Executive Order 14338, Improving Our Nation Through Better Design. The order established America by Design, a national initiative intended to improve the visual presentation and usability of federal services across digital and physical environments. It also established a National Design Studio within the White House and a new Chief Design Officer position.

The rationale is especially relevant to the design leadership conversation. The order acknowledges that, despite America's leadership in innovation and technology, government services have often lagged in usability and aesthetics, while legacy systems impose both financial costs and lost time on the public.

Technology alone does not necessarily create a great experience. Innovation alone does not necessarily create value. And efficiency alone does not necessarily create trust. Design helps connect these things.

The initiative goes beyond improving the appearance of government websites. The National Design Studio is intended to advise agencies on reducing duplicative design costs, increasing consistency, strengthening trust in high-impact services and improving the quality of public experiences. Agency leaders are directed to consult with the Chief Design Officer, with initial results called for by July 4, 2026.

Perhaps most significantly from a design management perspective, the CDO is expected to work across organizational boundaries, coordinating with federal agencies, the Office of Management and Budget, thought leaders, research and design firms, and private-sector design talent. That sounds remarkably similar to the role many of us have advocated for design leadership within business for years.

The CDO is becoming something different

Recent appointments across major organizations reinforce the same broader signal: senior design leadership is increasingly being positioned to address complexity, coherence, technology and human experience at enterprise scale. The contexts may be very different, but the underlying question is similar: how do we ensure increasingly powerful technologies, complex systems, organizations and services ultimately create meaningful experiences for people?

This is why I believe the conversation about the Chief Design Officer has evolved considerably since I wrote my original article. Years ago, we frequently talked about design needing a "seat at the table." Today, the more interesting question is: what responsibility does design have once it gets there?

Design leadership as organizational connectivity

Throughout my career working across design management, innovation, education and business, I have increasingly viewed senior design leadership not simply as stewardship of the design function, but as a connective capability across the organization. It helps an organization:

• Connect human needs with technological possibilities, particularly as AI dramatically expands what organizations are capable of creating.
• Connect design with business, ensuring customer value, commercial value, organizational capability and strategic priorities are considered together.
• Connect organizational silos, bringing design, R&D, technology, marketing, operations, manufacturing, finance and leadership into a more coherent innovation ecosystem.
• Create consistency across experiences as organizations move from individual products toward interconnected physical, digital, service and AI ecosystems.
• Advocate for responsible innovation, asking not simply "Can we create this?" but "Should we create it, for whom, and toward what meaningful outcome?"

AI can generate, analyze, optimize, automate and accelerate at extraordinary speed. But greater technological capability does not eliminate the need for design leadership. It increases it.

Someone still needs to understand people. Someone still needs to question assumptions. Someone still needs to connect individual touchpoints into meaningful experiences. Someone still needs to consider unintended consequences. And someone needs to help an organization translate technological possibility into something people can understand, trust, use and ultimately value.

From a seat at the table to a responsibility at the table

Simply appointing a Chief Design Officer does not make an organization design-led. Titles alone change very little. The effectiveness of a CDO depends upon the mandate, authority, organizational access, resources, capabilities and executive sponsorship surrounding the position. Equally important is the ability of the design leader to operate beyond the traditional boundaries of design.

I have long advocated for the T-shaped design executive: someone with deep expertise in design but sufficient breadth across business, technology, organizational change, innovation, operations and strategy to engage credibly with other executive disciplines. That idea was central to my original 2017 article and, in an increasingly interconnected and AI empowered business environment, I believe it is even more relevant today.

The White House initiative offers an interesting example at a different scale. Its CDO is not positioned simply around aesthetics. The role is intended to coordinate across agencies, engage external expertise, recruit talent, work alongside administrative and budget leadership, and influence how services are ultimately experienced by millions of people. That is much closer to design leadership as organizational transformation than design as styling.

Perhaps we have reached a turning point

When I wrote my original article, asking whether every organization needed a Chief Design Officer was intentionally provocative. Today, the more important observation may be that the case for senior design leadership is expanding beyond the traditional boundaries of product and brand.

The significance is not necessarily the title itself. It is what the title represents. Design can help organizations connect people, technology, business, systems, experiences and purpose. In an era dominated by AI and technological transformation, perhaps that human-centered connective capability has never been more important.

I ended my original article with IBM's famous principle: "Good design is good business." Nearly a decade later, I would expand that thought. Good design is good business. Good design can also create better organizations, better services and better experiences with the institutions that shape our everyday lives.

Perhaps the emergence of Chief Design Officers across corporations, and now government, is evidence that design is finally moving beyond seeking a seat at the table. The challenge now is demonstrating what we can responsibly accomplish from it.

Reference: White House, Executive Order 14338, "Improving Our Nation Through Better Design," August 21, 2025.