Deborah Dawton, Chief Executive of the Design Business Association
As Chief Executive of the Design Business Association, Deborah works with the industry to champion the tangible and measurable impact of design and its capability for change in business and government, nationally and internationally.
Her passion for design as a strategic tool that boardrooms must recognise, and her experience of the UK’s diverse and competitive design sector enable her to lead the DBA as it works tirelessly to build universal confidence in design investment and support the design industry to deliver on this promise.
Mary McBride Ph.D., Chair and Professor of Creative Enterprise Leadership, Arts and Cultural Management, Design Management at Pratt Institute
Mary is a coach, communication strategist and consultant to enterprise leaders worldwide. She designed and heads up the Creative Enterprise Leadership international graduate programmes in Design Management and Arts and Cultural Management at Pratt Institute.
Mary is passionate about the power of design to enable, engage and enliven, with her research focusing on developing the personal, organisational and systemic capacity for creative experimentation, innovation and change. She heads up the leadership development practice at Strategies for Planned Change and has most recently published Leading As If Life Matters: An Invitation to Attend a Future of Our Own Making with co-authors Xue Bai and Maren Maier.