From September 25–27 in San Francisco, the Design Executive Council (DXC) will convene senior design executives from the world’s leading companies under the theme “Defining Futures, Reimagining Roles.”

This year’s Summit comes at a moment of seismic shifts, macro challenges and evolving roles:

• ‍Four in ten CEOs in PwC's 2025 survey of 4701 global CEOs at World Economic Forum believe their companies will be unviable within a decade without rapid reinvention, reflecting how digital disruption, AI, and margin compression are forcing change at the top.
• The pressure is evident in markets: according to Morgan Stanley, 2025 Q2 earnings grew 26% for the ‘Magnificent 7’ tech giants but only 1% for the rest of the S&P 500, heightening concerns that cost-cutting and price increases could trigger stagflation.
• Against this backdrop, Design Executive Council's survey of 25 CDOs of Fortune 1000 companies shows that 48% of senior design executives view AI as a transformational opportunity or competitive advantage, while only 32% see it primarily as a risk—underscoring design’s pivotal role in driving enterprise reinvention.

This shift opens the door for something bigger: bringing together the collective perspective of design executives to define what leadership in the AI era should look like.

Rather than leaving companies to react piecemeal, our members have the chance to shape guiding principles that help boards and C-Suites apply AI responsibly and strategically. By aligning on shared practices focused on driving growth, managing reinvention, and strengthening resilience, our Council is best positioned to establish a playbook that shows how design leadership moves business forward and how companies can partner more effectively with their design executives.

At the Design Executive Council, we believe this is a pivotal moment not only to respond to disruption, but to define futures and reimagine our roles. Guided by our 2025 theme, The Intelligence Renaissance, we see this era as more than AI. It is a deeper inquiry into the values we choose, the futures we intend to create, and how we harness both human and artificial intelligence in the most meaningful ways that reclaim the full scale of our imagination.

Through this Summit, we will lay the foundations for defining the modern playbook for design leadership: addressing implications from AI product development, digital transformation, workforce evolution to business model reinvention and long-term corporate vision.

Uniting Design Executives to Advance Enterprise Leadership

DXC’s membership represents more than $3 trillion in market capitalization and over $1 trillion in annual revenues. Collectively, members average 20+ years of experience leading Fortune 1000 design organizations and large private companies across technology, finance, healthcare, transportation, retail, media & entertainment, and consumer sectors.

"This Summit is about more than design. It’s about how design executives step into the defining challenges of enterprise leadership today, reimagining how companies compete, how value is created, and how leaders shape the workforce of the future" said Gordon Ching, Founder & CEO at Design Executive Council.

The DXC Annual Summit is a curated peer forum where council members exchange strategies, sharpen insights, and set forward-looking agendas that address the realities of business under AI-driven disruption, margin pressure, and an evolving macroeconomic landscape.

Crafting the Playbook for Strategic Design Leadership

Over three days, the Summit brings members together to connect global business shifts with the design leadership imperatives that move companies and teams forward. The agenda spans AI, Metrics, Craft Evolution, Design Systems, Future of Teams, and Board Directorship—grounded in member events and research from our 2025 tracks.

Sessions focus on rigorous discussion over presentation, enabling members to have generous airtime to surface practices, shape DXC’s 2026 roadmap, and expand their influence as design, experience, and enterprise leaders. Co-created with members and informed by case studies and business insights, the Summit culminates in a modern playbook for the design executive role in the AI era. Insights gathered will carry forward into DXC’s research, publications, and events shaping 2026.

Summit Attendees

The Annual Summit is our flagship event to connect Council members and innovate on our practices. Our members are amongst the industry’s most influential corporate design executives, united not only by a love for design, but by a shared commitment to elevating its strategic role and impact within global enterprises.

• Andy Vitale - VP of Head of Product Design at Taxwell 
• Arin Bhowmick - EVP, Chief Design Officer at SAP 
• Brian Rice - Fmr. SVP, Global Chief Design and Brand Experience Officer at 3M
• Caleb Schmidt - SVP of Experience Design at U.S. Bank 
• Christian Rohrer - VP of Human Centered Design at TD Bank Group 
• Christina Vallery - Chief Design Officer at The Cigna Group 
• Christopher Kiley - Chief Design Officer at Boeing Digital 
• Cindy Chastain - Fmr. SVP of Customer Experience and Design at Mastercard 
• Eric Kabisch - Fmr. VP of Design at Roblox 
• Eric Wood - SVP of Product Experience at Hyundai Motor Group (42dot)
• Fabricio Dore - Chief Design Officer at Itau Unibanco 
• Heather Cassano - VP of Experience and Analytics at Autodesk 
• Heather Winkle - VP of Digital Experience at Delta Air Lines 
• Irene Au - Design Partner at Khosla Ventures
• Issa Breibish - Chief Design Officer at Bentley Systems 
• Jae Park - VP of Digital Product Design at Ford Motor Company 
• Janaki Kumar - Chief Design Officer, Global Banking at JPMorgan Chase 
• Jason Ferrell - Chief Design Officer at Humana 
• Jeff Gelfuso - SVP, Chief Design Officer at Qualtrics 
• Jennifer Darmour - VP of Health Design, Oracle
• Jyoti Shukla - Fmr. SVP of Experience Design at SiriusXM Pandora
• Mary Piontkowski - VP of Product Design at Cisco Networking 
• Matthew Menz - VP of CX at AWS, Amazon
• Natasha Tan - Head of Design, Enterprise at Rocket 
• Purvi Shah - VP of UX Design, Research, and Accessibility at Target
• Richard Dalton - VP, Head of Consumer Design at Verizon
• Tom Gebauer - SVP of Design and Research at Dow Jones

“As enterprises embrace AI and new business models, the role of design is no longer limited to shaping experiences; it’s central to how companies reinvent themselves,” said Arin Bhowmick, EVP, Chief Design Officer at SAP and Design Executive Council Board Advisor.

“Across the Design Executive Council, we see design executives stepping into business conversations about growth, reinvention, and the future of work. DXC provides the best forum where we can align on what that leadership must look like in this new era.”

We look forward to developing the new playbook for design leadership and organizations in the AI era. We extend our thanks to our members and team for enabling this important event.

Learn more

For senior design executives interested in our work, learn more about our Annual Summit and Council Membership below.

• About the Design Executive Council Annual Summit
• Explore Design Executive Council Membership

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