The Design Of Business | The Business of Design

Mar 04 2025 146 ep. 30 mins 3.8k

The Design Of Business | The Business of Design Podcast artwork

The Design of Business | The Business of Design explores how design shapes, and is shaped by, the world around us. Hosted by Ellen McGirt, the podcast features conversations with visionary leaders from a wide range of industries, from architecture and technology to journalism and retail. Together, they examine creative practices, challenge conventional thinking, and explore how design drives business, innovation, and social change.

In Season 12 of DB|BD, host Ellen McGirt explores Designing for the Unknown—how visionary designers, architects, and thinkers navigate uncertainty, from climate adaptation to technological disruption. This season, we’re looking at the bold ideas reshaping our cities, industries, and ways of living in an unpredictable world.

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S12E1: The Future of Cities is Climate Adaptive with Michael Eliason

Mar 04 2025 31 mins

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

S11E10: Activism in AI with Google’s Ovetta Sampson

Sep 11 2024 38 mins

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 humani

S11E9: What’s Love Got to Do With Business with Jorge Fontanez

Aug 28 2024 51 mins

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 a

S11E8: Poetry is Anti Capitalist with Tracy K. Smith

Aug 07 2024 56 mins

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

S11E7: Using Design to Show the World Your Truth with Dionna Dorsey and Production Designer Olivia Peebles

Jul 24 2024 58 mins

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

S11E6: Why an Inclusive Global Economy is a Redesign Project with Mastercard’s Shamina Singh

Jun 26 2024 56 mins

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 Gro

S11E5: WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert on Talent, Activism, and the Business of Basketball

Jun 12 2024 58 mins

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

S11E4: Richard Buery and Robin Hood Are Building a Coalition to Tackle Poverty in NYC

May 29 2024 57 mins

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

S11E3: The Healthy Materials Lab is Making Housing Healthier for Everyone

May 15 2024 57 mins

In 2015, interior designer Jonsara Ruth and architect Alison Mears received a grant to study the use of building materials in affordable housing. This grant led to the creation of the Healthy Materials Lab, a design-led research lab based out of the Parsons School of Design that raises awareness about toxins in building materials and draws attention to healthier alternatives. Almos

S11E2: How Franklin Leonard is using The Black List to Redesign Hollywood

May 01 2024 58 mins

Franklin Leonard is the founder and CEO of The Black List, a platform that nurtures emerging screenwriters and gives screenplays that aren’t attached to a big producer, actor or studio a chance to be produced. Since The Black List’s founding in 2005, 440 scripts from its annual survey have been produced as feature films, grossing $30 billion in box office worldwide. These films