Insights from recent episode analysis
Audience Interest
Podcast Focus
Publishing Consistency
Platform Reach
Insights are generated by CastFox AI using publicly available data, episode content, and proprietary models.
Most discussed topics
Brands & references
Total monthly reach
Estimated from 3 chart positions in 3 markets.
By chart position
- 🇩🇪DE · Design#8430K to 100K
- 🇺🇸US · Design#1755K to 30K
- 🇰🇪KE · Design#533K to 10K
- Per-Episode Audience
Est. listeners per new episode within ~30 days
19K to 70K🎙 Weekly cadence·29 episodes·Last published 4mo ago - Monthly Reach
Unique listeners across all episodes (30 days)
38K to 140K🇩🇪71%🇺🇸21%🇰🇪7% - Active Followers
Loyal subscribers who consistently listen
11K to 42K
Market Insights
Platform Distribution
Reach across major podcast platforms, updated hourly
Total Followers
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* Data sourced directly from platform APIs and aggregated hourly across all major podcast directories.
On the show
From 10 epsHost
Recent guests
Recent episodes
S3•E6 Arianne Miller + Sean Baker
Jan 7, 2026
53m 29s
S3•E5 Phil Gilbert
Dec 4, 2025
59m 49s
S3•E4 Ashleigh Axios
Oct 30, 2025
57m 16s
S3•E3 Sara Cantor + George Aye
Oct 6, 2025
56m 16s
Special Edition: Building Diverse Design Teams, Part 2
Sep 25, 2025
43m 12s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/7/26 |  S3•E6 Arianne Miller + Sean Baker✨ | civic designhuman-centered design+3 | Arianne MillerSean Baker | The Lab at OPMCivic Design Collaborative | U.S.Trump administration | civic designhuman-centered design+3 | — | 53m 29s | |
| 12/4/25 |  S3•E5 Phil Gilbert✨ | leadershipdesign transformation+3 | Phil Gilbert | Irresistible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-in and Breakout SuccessIBM | Austin, Texas | leadershipdesign+6 | — | 59m 49s | |
| 10/30/25 |  S3•E4 Ashleigh Axios✨ | civic designgovernment+3 | Ashleigh Axios | Public ServantsAIGA+1 | — | civic designequitable design+3 | — | 57m 16s | |
| 10/6/25 |  S3•E3 Sara Cantor + George Aye✨ | designpublic sector+3 | Sara CantorGeorge Aye | Greater Good Studio | ChicagoLos Angeles+3 | designpublic sector+5 | Livid ConferenceDOUG-FRIEND | 56m 16s | |
| 9/25/25 |  Special Edition: Building Diverse Design Teams, Part 2✨ | diversity in designdesign education+3 | Kevin BethuneTysonn Betts+2 | Diversify by DesignDESIGN= | — | diverse design teamsdesign leaders+3 | — | 43m 12s | |
| 9/18/25 |  Special Edition: Building Diverse Design Teams, Part 1✨ | diversity in designdesign education+3 | Kevin BethuneOen Hammonds+2 | Diversify by DesignDESIGN= | — | diverse design teamsdesign curriculum+3 | — | 45m 03s | |
| 5/20/25 |  2025 State of Black Design Conference✨ | Black Designracial equity+3 | Omari SouzaChanda Smith Baker | State of Black DesignUniversity of North Texas+4 | Minneapolis | Black Designracial equity+3 | — | 37m 19s | |
| 10/8/24 |  S2•E10 Kevin Bethune✨ | design leadershipinnovation+3 | Kevin Bethune | Westinghouse NuclearNike+6 | — | designinnovation+5 | — | 44m 19s | |
| 9/10/24 |  S2•E9 Jenna Date✨ | design industryreinvention+3 | Jenna Date | Human-Computer Interaction Institute | Burlington, VermontCarnegie Mellon University | designreinvention+5 | — | 44m 46s | |
| 8/20/24 |  S2•E8 Richard Hollant✨ | design leadershipsocial impact+3 | Richard Hollant | CO:LABAIGA+6 | HartfordConnecticut | design consultancybrand design+3 | — | 44m 23s | |
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| 8/6/24 |  S2•E7 Daniela Marzavan | I caught up with my guest for this episode, Daniela Marzavan, in the middle of an 8 week design road trip she is taking through Europe with her partner and 2 children—she’s calling it the Traveling School of Design Thinking.Based in Portugal, Daniela, is a self-described “pracademic”, fluidly straddling the line between design practice and design education. Daniela is fluent in 7 languages, and puts many of those languages to use in a practice that takes her across Europe and around the world working with universities, startups, scaled enterprises, NGOs, and governments, infusing these organizations with design thinking, innovation, and human-centered ways of working. Daniela is the co-author of the new book Creativity for a Sustainable Future, which seeks to harness the power of creativity as a driving force for positive change in complex environmental, social, and economic problems.We covered a lot of territory in this discussion, and I really enjoyed getting Daniela’s refreshing perspective on the trends she is seeing in the global regions she’s working in—trends that don’t always match what we see in parts of the design industry dominated by North American tech companies.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 48m 08s | ||||||
| 7/23/24 |  S2•E6 Vivek Rao | “I think that this idea of cross-functionality may be a legacy framework.”Throughout this season of the series I’ve been looking at the impact of AI and other emerging technology on the future of design and design leadership, and I’ve been particularly interested in examining this through the lens of some of the top academic design programs in the US. I find that looking at how students are learning design in the classroom can be a great predictor for how they will show up in the workplace in the years ahead, which of course will have a major impact on how our design teams and scaled design programs will operate. My guest for this episode is Vivek Rao, director of the new Masters of Engineering in Design & Technology Innovation program at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. A mechanical engineer by training, Vivek spent his early career at the design and innovation consultancy IDEO. He then did his PhD studies in design, innovation, and emerging technology at the University of California Berkeley, before joining Duke in 2023.We discuss the core idea of cross-functionality—blending design with engineering, business, data, marketing and other disciplines—a quality that Vivek himself embodies, and is instilling in his students.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 41m 56s | ||||||
| 7/9/24 |  S2•E5 Jonathan Hanahan | In recent years AI has become the dominant disruptive force for businesses and scaled organizations in every industry and global region, and it’s having a dramatic effect on the profession and practice of design. Over multiple episodes this season, I’ll be examining the impact of AI on design and design leadership from a variety of angles.In this episode I look at how AI is showing up in the academic design environment. How are students responding to the possibilities presented by AI, and by the immediate access they have to it? How are design educators integrating AI into their curricula, coursework, and programs? Importantly for design leaders, what does all of this tell us about the generation of designers who will be stepping into the profession—and into our teams—in the years ahead? My guest for this episode is Professor Jonathan Hanahan of the Sam Fox School of Art & Design at Washington University in St Louis. Jonathan brings a deeply technical practice and experimental approach to teaching design—an approach that is sometimes at odds with the more traditional craft-oriented graphic design foundation that the Sam Fox School is built on and known for. Later in the episode, we’ll hear about the new cross-disciplinary graduate design program just launched at the school. Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 40m 39s | ||||||
| 6/18/24 |  S2•E4 Bill Grant | Any podcast episode that begins with “I was born in Dalton, Georgia, the carpet capital of the world…” must be a good one! Throughout Season 2 of this series, host Doug Powell is speaking with guests who have established themselves as leaders in design and then have become leaders in a completely different space. Nobody embodies this leadership journey more than Doug's guest for this episode, Bill Grant. Bill is the founder and president of Grant Design Collaborative, the award-winning design firm he has led for over 30 years, and he’s a former national president of AIGA, the professional association for design in the U.S. Bill is also serving his second term as mayor of Canton, Georgia, the small town outside of Atlanta where he lives and works. In this wide-ranging conversation, Bill discusses his early influences as a designer, and how he has brought his core qualities as a designer into public service and civic leadership with remarkable success. In a time when many small towns are struggling, Canton is thriving under Bill Grant’s leadership, and now proudly carries the moniker of the coolest small town in America. Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 51m 50s | ||||||
| 6/4/24 |  S2•E3 Kaleena Sales & Sadie Red Wing | One of the best design books of 2023 was Centered: People and Ideas Diversifying Design, a remarkable collection of essays, interviews, and stories compiled and edited by my guest for this episode Professor Kaleena Sales. This amazing book spans geographical regions and cultures from Alabama to India, and from Kurdistan to Zimbabwe, illuminating designers, techniques, ideas, and artifacts that have previously gotten little or no attention by the established western design community. The book provides important context for all leaders building inclusive, human-centered design teams and programs. Kaleena Sales is Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Chair of the Art & Design Department at Tennessee State University, a historically black university in Nashville. Her research and writing are rooted in racial justice and equity, with a specific focus on the ways culture informs aesthetics.Kaleena and host Doug Powell are joined in the second half of the episode by one of the contributors to Centered, Sadie Red Wing, a Lakota/Dakota graphic designer and advocate from the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation. Sadie teaches at OCAD University in the Graphic Design and Indigenous Visual Culture programs.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 51m 49s | ||||||
| 5/21/24 |  S2 • E2 Kate Aronowitz + Robert Fabricant (part two) | Episode 2 of the new season is a continuation of our discussion with Kate Aronowitz of Google Ventures and Robert Fabricant of Dalberg.In part two, we dig deeply into a pair of articles written by Robert for Fast Company about the state of design leadership by examining the wave of contraction that has happened across the tech industry, and the emergence of grass-roots communities of designers seeking connection and guidance. Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 31m 50s | ||||||
| 5/14/24 |  S2 • E1 Kate Aronowitz + Robert Fabricant (part one) | Season 2 of This Is A Prototype: The Design Leadership Podcast is underway! This opening episode is a special two-part discussion featuring design leaders Kate Aronowitz of GV (Google Ventures) and Robert Fabricant of Dalberg. In part 1, we dig into Kate’s and Robert’s design backstories, and discuss the growth and expansion of design as a practice and a profession in the last two decades, including the important issue of leadership succession. We also begin to explore Robert’s recent Fast Company articles about the state of design leadership. Part 2 of the episode will post in your podcast feed early next week.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 37m 36s | ||||||
| 4/30/24 | Season 2: Coming Soon! | Season 2 of This is a Prototype: The Design Leadership Podcast is coming soon! The practice and profession of design in scaled companies continues to evolve in unexpected ways, and the role of the design leader in that evolution is more important than ever to the success of our teams and organizations. In Season 2 of This is a prototype, host Doug Powell continues to speak to the top design leaders in the industry about their life and career journeys into design. And he broadens the scope to explore cultural intersections in design; how design leaders are driving change in their communities; and how emerging technologies are changing our practices and our teams.Doug's guests in season 2 will include:Kaleena SalesSadie Red WingKate AronowitzRobert FabricantRich HollantBill GrantJonathan Hanahan ...and many more!Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 2m 45s | ||||||
| 12/5/23 | ThIs A Prototype: S1•E10 Doreen Lorenzo & Mbiyimoh Ghogomu (plus Pearl) | My guests for this Season 1 finale episode are Doreen Lorenzo and Mbiyimoh Ghogomu.Doreen Lorenzo is a pioneering design leader who is the Assistant Dean of the School of Design and Creative Technology at University of Texas, a role she started in 2016. Prior to joining UT, Doreen was the longtime President of Frog Design, one of the largest and most established global design consultancies in the world. Doreen is a columnist for Fast Company where she writes the Designing Women column profiling brilliant women in the design industry. Mbiyimoh Ghogomu is the co-founder and CEO of Tradeblock, the marketplace for collectible sneakers. Founded in 2019 the company has amassed more than 250,000 users and over a million sneakers available for trade on its digital platform. Tradeblock has raised more than 10 million dollars in VC funding. Mbiyimoh founded the company with childhood friends Tony Malveaux and Darren Smith after starting his career as a content design intern at IBM Design. This episode was recorded live at the offices of argodesign in Austin, Texas.Supporting partner for the live event was Pearl, the digital platform for proactive, effective, and inclusive hiring.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 1h 00m 37s | ||||||
| 11/20/23 | This Is A Prototype: S1•E9 Ann Willoughby & Mauro Porcini (plus State of Black Design Conference) | My guests in this episode are two legendary design leaders, Ann Willoughby and Mauro Porcini.Ann Willoughby is an AIGA Medalist who has been a leading voice in design for over five decades. In 1978 she founded Willoughby Design, one of the first woman-owned design firms in the US. In addition to her leadership of this award-winning firm, Ann has been an advocate for countless community organizations and academic programs throughout her career.Mauro Porcini is the first-ever Chief Design Officer of PepsiCo where he is infusing design thinking into the company’s culture and leading a new approach to innovation by design that is impacting it’s vast portfolio of products and brands. Mauro is also the author of the book The Human Side of Innovation: The Power of People in Love with People.We cover a remarkably wide breadth of topics from the important role leaders play in the building of company culture, to how designers respond to emerging technologies. Ann and Mauro share some delightful and inspiring stories about the people who have shaped their journeys as leaders. I open the episode with a special bonus segment: A short clip of a conversation I had recently with Professor Omari Souza, founder of the State of Black Design conference, which is happening for the first time ever as a live, in-person event March 15-16 in Nashville, Tennessee.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 54m 41s | ||||||
| 11/7/23 | This Is A Prototype: S1•E8 Tom Scott | Executive design recruiter Tom Scott is the founder of Verified, the publisher of the weekly newsletter Verified Insights, and the host of the new podcast, Verified Insider. Tom recently interviewed me for a future episode of Verified Insider, and in this episode I combine my interview of Tom for my podcast, with a preview of his interview of me for his podcast. Tom and I discuss the reasons design leadership roles are often not set up for success—from inadequate funding and resources, to scoping of the mission, to lack of clarity around what value design can actually bring. Tom explores the critical role recruiters can play in helping companies shape their vision for design leadership.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 35m 14s | ||||||
| 10/24/23 | This Is A Prototype: S1•E7 Rama Gheerawo | Rama Gheerawo is the director of the Helen Hamlyn Center for Design at the Royal College of Art in the UK, and the author of a book that should be on all of our reading lists, Creative Leadership, Born from Design. In his book, Rama asks not only whether designers can actually be leaders, but whether we can in fact be better leaders because of our creative capabilities and qualities. If you’ve listened to any previous episodes of this podcast, you know that this is one of the central questions I’ve been asking with all of my guests. In this episode, Rama and I go deep on the epidemic of impostor syndrome among design leaders, and we explore his framework for creative leadership that’s built on the principles of Empathy, Clarity and Creativity. Rama also shares with us some inspiring world leaders who embody these principles.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 50m 11s | ||||||
| 10/10/23 | This Is A Prototype: S1•E6 Nicole Gull-McElroy | “How is design infiltrating business in a new way? How is it reaching every inch of the of the business?"—Nicole Gull-McElroyWhat are the central stories in the design industry today, and how is the business media covering them?In this POV Edition, I speak with journalist Nicole Gull-McElroy, who reports on the intersection of business and design for Fortune, Fast Company, and Wired, among other publications. Nicole was the lead editor for Fortune’s “By Design” newsletter, and last January she wrote an excellent article for Fast Company examining the effects of designer layoffs in the tech industry, which is one of the tangents we explore together in this wide-ranging conversation.----------------------Nicole Gull McElroy is a freelance journalist based outside of Philadelphia. Having completed her MS in journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Nicole started her career covering breaking news at various daily newspapers throughout the South and Midwest before taking staff jobs Inc. and Men's Journal magazines. She's written for Fortune, WIRED, and Fast Company, covering the ways business and design intersect, and for a time handled the Business x Design newsletter at Fortune.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 33m 37s | ||||||
| 9/26/23 | This Is A Prototype: S1•E5 Janaki Kumar & Stefanie Kubanek | “Leadership is really a generosity of spirit. When you care about not just yourself but you care about those around you, and you’re willing to go that extra mile to make others around you successful, it becomes clear you are ready for leadership.” —Janaki KumarThroughout Season 1 of the series, we’ve been digging deeply into the hidden, and often surprising characteristics of leadership. Those leadership qualities—actually those human qualities—that don’t come from a text book or a classroom. That’s one of the themes I explore with my guests on this episode, Janaki Kumar and Stefanie Kubanek.Janaki Kumar is Head of Design at JP Morgan Chase’s Commercial Bank, and previously was head of the Design and Co-Innovation Center at SAP Labs. A thought-leader on design-led innovation in the enterprise, Janaki co-authored the book Gamification at Work – Designing Engaging Business Software. She has spoken at numerous industry conferences and academic programs, including Stanford’s Graduate School of Business where she teaches Customer Experience Design.Stefanie Kubanek is a New York and Munich-based designer and design educator whose work is inspired by her native-German roots and global perspective. After initially studying goldsmithing, Stefanie completed her Industrial Design studies at the Royal College of Art, and went on to spend a decade at the London office of Pentagram. In addition to running her own design consultancy, she is now Visiting Senior Lecturer at Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in Ithaca, NY, and at Cornell Tech in NYC.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 47m 45s | ||||||
| 9/12/23 | This Is A Prototype: S1•E4 Heidi Munc & Gus Granger | “I’m incredibly appreciative of the people that took a moment and said ‘here’s some things you’re probably gonna want to learn if you want to go farther.’”—Heidi MuncAmong the core themes that is emerging in Season 1 is the importance of mentorship, coaching, and sponsorship for design leaders. That’s one of the topics I explore in this wide-ranging discussion with my guests, Heidi Munc and Gus Granger.Heidi Munc is a user experience expert and creative problem solver with over 20 years of experience. As Vice President of User Experience at Nationwide, Heidi leads a team of ~100 user experience professionals who are accountable for all aspects of experience strategy and design. Gus Granger is an accomplished and award-winning brand strategist and graphic designer who has led both agency and in-house teams in an impressive range of leadership roles across various organizations including 70kft, VSA Partners, and Cyxtera.Doug Powell is an award-winning designer and executive design leader with more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of design disciplines. Learn more about Doug's practice as a consultant, educator, and coach at his website dougpowell.design. | 51m 02s | ||||||
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Chart Positions
3 placements across 3 markets.
Chart Positions
3 placements across 3 markets.