Design Leadership at Scale: Executive

4.8 (54)

·

2 Weeks

·

Cohort-based Course

Shape the future of business. Develop the vision, strategy, and influence to make design a critical driver of transformation.

Leadership experience

Samsung Electronics
Amazon
Bank of America
Expedia Group
PayPal

Course overview

Expand your impact and position design as a competitive advantage.

This advanced course equips senior design leaders to move from tactical design execution to strategic leadership. You will learn how to align design with business strategy, lead cross-functional transformation, and position design as a key driver of innovation and business growth.


What you’ll learn:


1. Shift from tactical to strategic design leadership

Move beyond day-to-day operations by aligning design with broader business objectives and leading with strategic vision to shape company outcomes.


2. Connect design, business, and technology

Master the integration of business priorities, emerging technologies, and experience strategy to drive innovation, while building the fluency to influence C-suite decision-making.


3. Lead organizational change through design

Foster a design-driven culture and lead organizational change by positioning design as a strategic asset. You'll learn to scale your team, build influence, and drive design maturity across the organization.


4. Transform product culture and scale design for growth

Integrate design thinking throughout the product lifecycle to drive continuous innovation. Build scalable operations and systems that support growth while balancing operational efficiency, creativity, and quality in fast-paced environments.


5. Design the future of business

Harness future-leaning capabilities, emerging technologies, and new ways of working to elevate design’s role as a strategic differentiator and build your legacy as a future-ready leader.


Plus: 2 in-depth Office Hours with Rachel for personalized guidance tailored to your specific leadership challenges.

Who is this course for

01

Senior Design Leaders taking on their first executive role. Ready to expand influence and lead design’s integration into business strategy.

02

Senior Design Executives leading large teams and portfolios. Leaders aligning design with business goals and scaling cross-functional teams.

03

Design C-Suite navigating rapid transformation and growth. Leaders using design to drive innovation and lead organizational change.

What you will get out of this course

Accelerate your career

Position yourself as a strategic design leader by mastering business fluency and aligning design with organizational goals. You’ll unlock new opportunities for executive-level roles and influence high-stakes conversations that shape the future of your career.

Amplify your impact

Learn how to connect design to measurable business outcomes, elevating your function as a key driver of business strategy. By demonstrating the tangible impact of your team’s work, you’ll influence priorities, drive innovation, and secure greater investment.

Expand your influence and communication

Build strong relationships across the C-suite, foster cross-functional collaboration, and articulate design’s strategic value effectively. You’ll craft a communication strategy that aligns with business goals and positions design as a critical component in key decisions.

Designed for busy senior design leaders

This intensive two-week course is curated for senior leaders with demanding schedules. Recorded sessions are available for flexibility, allowing you to review key lessons at your convenience.

This course includes

7 interactive live sessions

Lifetime access to course materials

42 in-depth lessons

Direct access to instructor

25 projects to apply learnings

Guided feedback & reflection

Private community of peers

Course certificate upon completion

Maven Satisfaction Guarantee

This course is backed by Maven’s guarantee. You can receive a full refund within 14 days after the course ends, provided you meet the completion criteria in our refund policy.

Course syllabus

Week 1

Dec 9—Dec 15

    Dec

    9

    Optional: Design Leadership at Scale – Kickoff Call

    Mon 12/94:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)
    Optional

    Module 1: Establish Strategic Foundations

    12 items

    Dec

    10

    Live Session: 1

    Tue 12/104:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)

    Dec

    11

    Optional: Office Hours w/ Rachel

    Wed 12/114:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)
    Optional

    Module 2: Drive Vision + Execution

    13 items

    Dec

    12

    Live Session: 2

    Thu 12/124:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)

Week 2

Dec 16—Dec 19

    Module 3: Amplify Influence + Impact

    13 items

    Dec

    17

    Live Session: 3

    Tue 12/174:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)

    Dec

    18

    Optional: Office Hours w/ Rachel

    Wed 12/184:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)
    Optional

    Module 4: Scale Design Infrastructure

    13 items

    Dec

    19

    Live Session: 4

    Thu 12/194:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)

Bonus

4.8 (54 ratings)

What students are saying

This is probably the best course I've ever taken. Rachel put together amazing content I'll be returning to often as I continue growing into my new role as a design leader. The cohort environment is invaluable. Learning from other design leaders and discussing the challenges we face takes this course to a whole new level. I highly recommend taking this course if you recently stepped into a leadership position. You'll cover more than you can process in two weeks, but you'll have access to top-notch lectures, frameworks, and an amazing network of peers to keep you moving forward long after the course officially ends.

Camille

DLSE05 - Dec 2024 - Executive

UX Design Manager

tastytrade

One of THE most valuable courses I have ever taken - packed full of frameworks and best practices for strategic leadership, innovation and operational excellence. I highly recommend this to senior design leaders with many years under their belts. It's rigorous, dense, and fast-paced, but I plan to continue the projects well into the future.

Michelle

DLSE05 - Dec 2024 - Executive

AVP, Marketing Comms & Design

Navy Federal Credit Union

This course exceeded my expectations. Rachel is truly passionate about design and very generous sharing her experience with others. The guest speakers are top-notch and the pre-reads carefully curated. We covered a lot and I will come back to the recorded sessions as I continue my journey.

Maria

DLSE04 - June 2024 - Executive

Design Practice Lead

KeyBank

This course clarified my blind spots and equipped me with new frameworks to become a better design (business) leader and unlock the next phase of my career as a design executive. The video lectures and reading materials were enlightening, and I found immense value in hearing perspectives from other design executives in the live sessions. Guest presenters provided another layer of insight and inspiration. I'm excited to implement everything I've learned to ensure that Design is always a driving force in the success of any business that I'm a part of.

Mindy

DLSE05 - Dec 2024 - Executive

Sr Director of Product Design and UX Research

Rocket Companies (Quicken Loans)

You might think you have experience, and that you have heard/ seen it all, but Rachel takes it to another level. The combination of a structured approach, with a substantial but curated list of source material, and her real-life hands-on experience (with anecdotes and real talk about the good/ bad/ ugly) makes it valuable, impactful, critical if you are looking ahead. Highly recommend it.

Jose

DLSE04 - June 2024 - Executive

Head of Design Americas

Signify

I can't recommend this course highly enough! Rachel was so engaging, inclusive, and generous with both her time and expertise. The cohort not only learned from Rachel and her special guests, but also from each other, at a level that exceeds other programs that I've seen.

Danielle

DLSE04 - June 2024 - Executive

Director of Experience Design

Revel / Infogain

Meet your instructor

Rachel Kobetz

Rachel Kobetz

Chief Design Officer @ PayPal

Rachel Kobetz is a distinguished Chief Design executive with proven expertise driving the vision, strategy, and implementation of customer experiences and organizational transformation for Fortune 100 companies. Her ability to shape product cultures that humanize technology and forge meaningful connections between products and consumers has made her a sought-out operator, indispensable advisor, and industry thought leader. Rachel builds world-class organizations integrating human-centered design to drive product and service innovation and elevates design as a strategic advantage. She brings deep expertise in design strategy, operational leadership, and organizational design, ensuring that businesses can navigate the present and shape the future. Her leadership experience spans a range of industries, including tech, e-commerce, financial services, consumer electronics, and travel.


As Chief Design Officer for PayPal, Rachel is responsible for the design strategy and execution at scale across all end-to-end experiences for consumers, merchants, developers, and employees globally. She’s joined at a pivotal moment in the company’s history to reinvent experiences across all surfaces, foster a culture of creativity and innovation, and help to define the future of commerce and payments.


Prior to PayPal, Rachel was SVP and Global Head of Design for Expedia Group, where she led a cultural transformation to shift the company into an experience-led organization, responsible for the design vision, experience strategy, and operational leadership for all products and services. Before joining Expedia, Rachel held prominent leadership positions as SVP and Head of Experience Design at Bank of America, Head of Studio, New Product UX at Amazon's Human-Centered Design Group, and Senior Director of UX at Samsung's Mobile Innovation Lab.


Rachel serves as Executive Board Member for the Fast Company Executive Board. She also writes the influential newsletter, Defining Experience, providing insights on design leadership, experience-led culture, emerging technology, and the future of work.

A pattern of wavy dots

Be the first to know about upcoming cohorts

Design Leadership at Scale: Executive

Free resource

Strategic Design Leadership: Essential Questions for Design Executives

What keeps design executives up at night?


It's rarely the design challenges themselves. More often, it's the broader questions that come with leading design at scale: How do we transform an entire business through design? Build teams that can consistently deliver excellence? Create systems that scale while preserving innovation?


In this piece, I share a framework that helps maintain strategic clarity while building for lasting impact...

Get this free resource

Frequently Asked Questions