Phil Hamlett

Background

About Phil Hamlett

I am a design leader, educator, and first-generation digital native. I unite creative minds to common purpose, building the ideal circumstances — the teams, settings, conditions, and processes — through which good ideas take root and grow. I focus on the sustainable attributes, ethical dimensions and functional intentions of institutions, products, and services and subject them to the transformative power of design. I get called in to answer: “What problem are we trying to solve?” “How can we work together to make things happen?” “How do we think as broadly as possible to ensure our solutions are sustainable?” “How can we support designers to be creative, productive, and collaborative?” As the founder of a graduate design program and leader of an academic institution with a large international student body, I lead a globalized, online program with varied modalities that aren’t place- or culturally-dependent. I view design as not only a means of tech-driven production and distribution, but as a way of thought and strategy; as a means of problem-solving and of problem-seeking. My leadership philosophy unites conceptual and applied design, technology, collaboration, design systems thinking, sustainability, brand, and ethical leadership into an expansive creative model. I teach designers to see themselves as responsible for shaping culture, creating value sets, devising new business models, and finding meaning as confident and accomplished makers. I help people achieve their visions, changing the stars for as many as I can through the rigorous application of innovative education, design thinking, responsible leadership with a POV, and co-creation.