INSEAD Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Partnership That Fuses Design Innovation With Business Strategy

Exploring how design and business influence each other to create innovation was barely a thought bubble of Wall Street power players a decade ago. Not so for leaders at Art Center College of Design and INSEAD who, in 2005, launched a groundbreaking collaboration between MBA and design students that today is recognized as a proven pipeline to successful ventures in the creative economy.

Alumni and faculty from both institutions will recognize the 10-year partnership at a celebration on Saturday, February 28, at Airbnb’s architecturally acclaimed headquarters in San Francisco. The event will include a panel of former students who participated in the collaborative program at INSEAD and are now design and business leaders in their respective fields. The purpose of the reunion and networking event is to reconnect and form future partnerships.

“There’s tremendous value from this partnership between INSEAD and Art Center College of Design, not only to the talent that emerges after graduation but in creating a collective consciousness among business leaders who deeply understand the design way of thinking,” said Manuel Sosa, associate professor of Technology and Operations Management, INSEAD.

MBA students spend an immersive week in California’s design-driven culture, with studio visits to industry partners such as Idealab, Disney Consumer Products, General Motors, Karten Design and Belkin

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Each year, a cohort of design students from Art Center’s Pasadena campus spend a term abroad, taking MBA-level business courses at one of INSEAD’s international campuses in Europe in Fontainebleau, or in Asia in Singapore. Student teams collaborate on product-based, entrepreneurial projects while diving into the fundamentals of business development. As part of this partnership, the MBA students spend an immersive week in California’s design-driven culture, with studio visits to industry partners such as Idealab, Disney Consumer Products, General Motors, Karten Design and Belkin. This year, the tour has extended to Silicon Valley and San Francisco with visits to Google, IDEO, fuseproject, frog and Autodesk.

“Successful companies are built by risk takers able to tap an impressive interconnected web of talented innovators who share an appreciation for the powerful intersection of design and business,” said Karen Hofmann, Product Design chair at Art Center College of Design and managing director of the College’s partnership with INSEAD. “This decade-long collaboration has fueled a unique and thriving network of design and business leaders and industry partnerships around the world, resulting in a number of successful endeavors.”

The reunion will take place at Airbnb’s incredible corporate offices in San Francisco where Art Center Product Design alumna Katie Dill, class of 2007, serves as head of experience design. A graduate of the INSEAD program, Dill says the experience dramatically sharpened her strategic business and entrepreneurial skills. (Cover Image courtesy creativeboom.co.uk)