The Design Leadership Index

No.LeaderCraftHolds the bar for the work and the end-human — judgment, not pixels.CommunicationMakes design legible and makes the case — the clarity thesis.BusinessMakes design matter to outcomes and durable orgs.EducationGrows, reskills, and elevates people. The people-protection axis.InnovationPushes the practice forward with AI — the kind that elevates people, not the kind that replaces them.Score

Endorsed

01Julie ZhuoCo-founder & CEO of Sundial; former VP of Product Design at Facebook91091089.3 /10

143

02Brad FrostPrincipal & design system consultant at Big Medium; inventor of Atomic Design9108988.8 /10

142

03Karri SaarinenCo-founder & CEO of Linear; previously principal designer of Airbnb's DLS and founding designer at Coinbase1099798.8 /10

141

04Sara ViennaChief Design Officer at MetaLab998988.6 /10

139

05Rachel KobetzChief Design Officer at PayPal; founder of Design Leadership at Scale899988.6 /10

138

06Randy HuntHead of Design at Notion; Chair of MFA Design at School of Visual Arts999888.6 /10

137

07Ryan SingerAuthor of Shape Up; Fractional CPO and founder of Felt Presence (early 37signals/Basecamp)9108898.6 /10

135

08Luke WroblewskiManaging Director and head of product at Sutter Hill Ventures; product designer, author, and the voice behind lukew.com9109798.6 /10

134

09Bob BaxleySVP of Design & Experience at ThoughtSpot; design leader formerly at Apple, Pinterest, and Yahoo998978.5 /10

132

10Vitaly FriedmanFounder & Editor-in-Chief of Smashing Magazine; UX consultant and educator (Design Patterns for AI Interfaces)9107988.5 /10

131

11Karel VredenburgFormer Global VP of UX Research / Director of Global Design Leadership at IBM; now Industry Professor at McMaster and co-founder of Habits for a Better World899978.5 /10

130

12Catherine CourageVP of User Experience (Knowledge/Search & Commerce UX) at Google899978.5 /10

128

13Jason CyrVP of Design for Security, AI & Platform at Cisco898998.5 /10

127

14Pablo StanleyDesign + code at Vercel (v0); co-founder of Lummi (acquired by Udemy 2025), creator of Humaaans and Open Peeps998898.5 /10

126

15Garry TanPresident & CEO of Y Combinator; designer-engineer-founder turned investor8910798.5 /10

124

16Stuart FrisbyDesign leader at Preply; ex-Director of Design at Booking.com and Director of Brand & Experience Design at Deliveroo898988.4 /10

123

17Erin CasaliSenior Director of Product & Design at Xero (formerly Head of Design, Jetpack at Automattic)898988.4 /10

122

18Greg StoreyAuthor of 'Creative Intelligence' and design leader (ex-IBM, USAA, InVision; founder of Airbag Industries)898988.4 /10

120

19Jared SpoolFounder of Center Centre / UIE and 'Maker of Awesomeness'; one of UX's most influential educators and speakers8109878.4 /10

119

20Jen CardelloManaging VP, Design Research & Operations at Capital One (formerly SVP UX Research at Fidelity, Director at Nielsen Norman Group)899888.4 /10

118

21Ethan EismannChief Design Officer at Nubank; previously SVP Design at Slack999788.4 /10

116

22Peter MerholzDesign leadership consultant; co-founder of Adaptive Path, co-author of 'Org Design for Design Orgs,' co-host of Finding Our Way898978.3 /10

115

23Rupa ChaturvediFounder of the Human Centered AI Institute; former UX design lead at Amazon Alexa, Google Nest, and Uber897998.3 /10

114

24Andy BuddFounder of Clearleft and Leading Design; Venture Partner at Seedcamp and design-leadership coach899878.3 /10

112

25Jenny BlackburnVP of UX for Gemini Experiences & Google Assistant, Google DeepMind889888.3 /10

111

26Emmet ConnollyVP of Product Design at Intercom898898.3 /10

110

27David HoangVP & Head of Design, Rovo & AI and Ecosystem at Atlassian; writer of Proof of Concept898898.3 /10

108

28Jason FriedCo-founder and CEO of 37signals (Basecamp, HEY, ONCE)7109888.3 /10

107

29MC DeanVP of Product Design and Research at Trustpilot; ex-Google Maps and Atlassian; PhD in AI + HCI998798.3 /10

105

30SoleioCo-founder of Combine (design-led VC), angel investor/advisor; former Head of Design at Dropbox and Facebook's 2nd product designer999698.3 /10

104

31RiddFounding designer at Maven, creator of Figma Academy, host of Dive Club, and co-founder of Inflight997888.1 /10

103

32Deb KawamotoVP of Design at Vanta (prev. VP Design & Research at Affirm, Sr. Director at Credit Karma)889878.1 /10

101

33John MaedaVP, Design & AI (CoreAI Computational Design) at Microsoft; author of The Laws of Simplicity and How to Speak Machine6109898.1 /10

100

34Jenny WenHead of Design for Claude at Anthropic (former Director of Design at Figma)988798.1 /10

35Marty CaganFounder & Partner, Silicon Valley Product Group; author of Inspired, Empowered, and Transformed699978.0 /10

36Cameron MollChief Design Officer at Desquared; Meta/Pendo alumnus and longtime web design author-speaker888888.0 /10

37Dan MallFounder of Design System University and SuperFriendly; author of 'Design That Scales'898878.0 /10

38Karen ChurchVP Research & Data Science at Intercom, leading Team RAD888888.0 /10

39Avi AshkenaziSenior Director of Product Design at Deel (ex-Shopify, Samsung, iwoca); Google Developer Expert988788.0 /10

40E.K. ChungVP of UX at Reddit and Head of Design at AI-native VoyagerX; formerly Google director for Android, Pixel, and Ads UX988788.0 /10

41Jason BrightmanVP, Virtual Expert Platform Experience at Intuit (ex-PayPal, ex-Amazon)889788.0 /10

42Jhilmil JainVP Product Design, Monetization at Meta (prev. Director of Product Design, Google One)889788.0 /10

43Travis IsaacsVP & Chief Design Officer, Webex Collaboration at Cisco (Cisco's first CDO)888877.9 /10

44Matt MacQueenVP, Product & Design at JSTOR/ITHAKA; self-described product design leader and AI builder878887.9 /10

45TJ PitreFounder & CEO of Southleft, a design-systems and AI-workflow agency; creator of Figma Console MCP.887897.9 /10

46Andy MontgomeryVP of Design at Coinbase; formerly VP of Design, Creative & Research at Robinhood and Head of Design at Square.889777.9 /10

47Jeff ChewHead of AI Technology, IBM Carbon Design System888797.9 /10

48Richard BanfieldVP of Design Leadership at Knapsack; author of Design Leadership and Product Leadership; founder of Fresh Tilled Soil798877.8 /10

49Bryan ZmijewskiFounder & CEO of ZURB and Helio; creator of the Foundation responsive framework888787.8 /10

50Ratna DesaiDirector of Product Design at Netflix (TV, Discovery & Core Member Experience), formerly UX Lead on Google Search & Assistant and Creative Director at frog.898777.8 /10

51Chris RisdonSenior Staff Designer on eBay's AI Foundations team; co-author of Orchestrating Experiences and longtime service-design leader (Adaptive Path, Capital One, IBM Watson).997697.8 /10

52D.Anthony VerdinSenior Director / Head of Design (Product Design, Content, Research, Product Creative) at Robinhood; prior design leadership at Affirm and Huge888777.6 /10

53Jason BroughtonChief Design Officer at LexisNexis and Elsevier888777.6 /10

54Sam OshinDirector of Product Design, Design & Dev Tools at Figma; ex-Senior Director at GitHub leading a 45-person team on AI experiences and brand.898687.6 /10

55Don NormanCo-founder of Nielsen Norman Group; the 'father of UX' who coined the term at Apple797957.5 /10

56Jason MesutFounder of Resonant Futures and Design Partner at Group of Humans; creator of the 'Shaping Design/Shaping Designers' frameworks796977.5 /10

57Elizabeth AlliFounder of DesignerUp and senior product designer/educator, best known for teaching 'mindful product design'.896877.5 /10

58Elyse HolladayStaff Design Engineer, Design Systems at Color Health; host of the 'On Theme' design systems podcast896877.5 /10

59Cennydd BowlesTechnology ethicist, author of Future Ethics, and managing director of responsible-design studio NowNext (former Twitter design lead)896877.5 /10

60Tommy GeocoFounder of Teardowns.ai & UX Tools; creator of the 'This Is Taste' series (a.k.a. Designer Tom)797787.4 /10

61Erika HallCo-founder & Director of Strategy at Mule Design; author of Just Enough Research and Conversational Design778857.3 /10

62Jen DunnamVP of Design at Patreon (formerly ACD at frog; Shopify, Huge, Google Creative Lab, MIT Senseable City Lab)887767.3 /10

63Rachel PosmanSenior Director of Central Design Operations at Salesforce; co-author of The Design Conductors698777.3 /10

64Margaret CyphersVP of Design at ServiceNow (Employee Workflows); ex-Director of UX at Google Workspace, Drive, and Play878677.3 /10

65Patricia ReinersAI x UX specialist, founder of the AI for Designers bootcamp and host of the Future of UX podcast696887.1 /10

66Patrick MorganProduct Design Lead at Sublime Security and founder of the Unknown Arts newsletter787777.1 /10

67Ryan BrownhillDirector of Design at Instagram and co-founder of HUS Collective, a small AI/ML software studio.877687.1 /10

68Jaleh AfsharDirector of Product Design at Meta; author of 'Chief Design Officers at Work'787767.0 /10

69Brendan KearnsFounder of DAWNLABS (AI design tool dawn.design) and author of Everything is a Prototype; ex-Google, Twitter, InVision designer.886676.9 /10

70Ethan MollickAssociate Professor at Wharton and author of Co-Intelligence; best known as the most-read practical explainer of working with AI via the One Useful Thing newsletter.31071086.0 /10

71Gleb KuznetsovChief Design Officer at Brain Technologies and Founder/CEO of design studio Milkinside1088496.0 /10

72Dennis HambeukersDesign strategist and prolific design-leadership essayist; editor of the Design Leadership Notebook on Medium (Maastricht, Netherlands)694665.9 /10

73Ioan PopaPrincipal Designer at Splunk (brand: 1onica), ~16-year UX/UI design leader in enterprise observability and incident response766465.8 /10

74EvangelineProduct/UX Designer and AI-design educator (best match: Evangeline Ng, Staff UX Designer at Palo Alto Networks; AI Design Garden Substack)674665.6 /10

75Chris ThomasFounder of YNDR, an Atlanta AI/software development agency; Fractional Chief AI Officer and Anthropic-certified Claude specialist667365.5 /10

Outside the rankingDesign-adjacent

Influential for design — methodology, writing, the conversation — but leading from outside the discipline. Tracked here, not ranked among design leaders.

John CutlerHead of Product at Dotwork; author of The Beautiful Mess and one of product's most-read voices7108988.3 /10 Lenny RachitskyCreator of Lenny's Newsletter and Lenny's Podcast; ex-product/growth lead at Airbnb598977.5 /10 David Heinemeier HanssonCo-owner & CTO, 37signals (Basecamp, HEY); creator of Ruby on Rails899577.5 /10

The DesignLeadership Index

The Design
Leadership Index