My name is Kevin Bethune. I’m a design & innovation servant-leader, entrepreneur, best-selling author and keynote speaker based in Redondo Beach, California.
Interested in booking me for a keynote opportunity? … please contact Tom Neilssen at BrightSight Speakers.
Photo: Harrison Boyce
I presently serve as the Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a think tank that delivers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. My background spans engineering, business and design in equal proportion over 25+ years of in-depth product experiences, positioning me to help brands deliver meaningful innovations to enrich people’s lives.
My first book, Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation (The MIT Press) released with notable acclaim under the Simplicity: Design, Business, Technology, Life Series in March 2022. My second book, Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction (The MIT Press), will be coming out in February of 2025. I also serve as a Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and a Board Director for the Design Management Institute (DMI).
After a journey of unique multidisciplinary leaps across mechanical engineering, business and industrial design, I focus on helping preeminent brands and startups unlock strategic innovation opportunities by opening their creative aperture.
Client Partnership
dreams • design + life is a think tank that fields projects primarily through referral and trusted relationships. We unlock innovation opportunities using Strategic Design and Industrial Design in tandem.
Shared Perspectives
Whether via books I write or talks I give, I tell stories about how design changed my life, and how I’ve watched design change organizations too. I offer perspectives rooted in lived experience as a Black man navigating corporate America.
Design Outreach
I’m committed to helping the next generation of creatives fulfill their purpose, paying it forward from the numerous mentors and advocates that helped me throughout my journey. I believe mentorship is a two-way street, and I walk away equally inspired from every exchange.
Today, I serve as a fractional design executive for a few startups and an innovation advisor to creative teams inside of large corporations. These experiences offer a diversity of learnings, which I often share through writing and speaking.
I have had the privilege of engaging audiences at TED, Nike, Spotify R&D, PepsiCo Design, Google Design, LinkedIn’s Black by Design, Amplitude, Boston Consulting Group, Morningstar, DMI, IDSA, AIGA, The Index Project, MIT, Northwestern University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Notre Dame, ArtCenter College of Design, CCA, UIC, Lucerne, Where Are the Black Designers? (WATBD) and The State of Black Design.
I’ve also been credited for written contributions within FastCompany, DMI Review, PRINT Magazine, DesignObserver, FiveBooks, Core77 and Interaction Design Foundation, and featured in podcasts including Revision Path, Design Better, The Deep Dive, The Institute of Black Imagination, DesignObserver’s The Design of Business | The Business of Design, Design Drives, Technically Speaking, Tech Wrap Queen, The Art of the Impossible with Danielle Newnham and The Mark Devine Show.
Photo: Richard Hadley / TED.