2023-2025 WDO BOARD NOMINEE

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‘The entrepreneurial mindset of the designer is a central concern of training institutions. An idea is worth nothing, even the most desirable one, if it is not tested by the markets and/or society in general. It is not a question of turning all designers into company managers, as the latter have specific skills that not all possess. But it is about multiplying interactions, sharing with companies, and in particular start-ups, whose model of creation, agile decision making, and simple hierarchical structures make projections to strategic and project management levels possible.’

Christian Guellerin
L’École de design Nantes Atlantique Executive Director

The emergence of a societal conscience and the new human-machine relationship are the two major issues that now guide all design school pedagogy. Each project, each creation, each scenario will be borrowed from these two themes which constitute the link and the node of all the others – they force us to give a meaning to a desirable tomorrow.

Applied to the economic world, as Elsbeth Gerner Nielsen puts it, “The companies of the 19th and 20th centuries asked themselves the question of what is technologically possible and economically profitable, those of the 21st ask themselves the question of what makes sense.”

Professionnal experience

Christian Guellerin is the director of L’École de design Nantes Atlantique – France. He is graduated from IUA – University of San Francisco (MBA). After working for 2 years in New York for a financial company, he took over the management of a business school in Nantes (France).

He taught Finance and Management at the University of Paris VIII and IX Dauphine. He took over the management of L’école de design Nantes Atlantique in 1998. He was President of Cumulus from 2007 to 2013. He is now Honorary President.

He chairs “Design for creative innovation” in Shanghai and Africa Design School in Cotonou (Benin). He has carried out numerous expert missions to the European Union. He is a lecturer, Tedx lecturer and writes numerous articles on design as a strategic discipline for innovation in French and foreign journals. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of DIID. He is the President of MK10, a company of investment in technology.

Present occupation

L’école de design brings together 1,800 students with some branches in France, China, India, Brazil, Canada and Benin. It is focused on innovation project management. It works with 90 companies per year on the uses of tomorrow and their development strategies.

It has 5 designLabs: Food design, Care, Digital, City, Media. L’Ecole de design delivers Bachelor, Licenses and Masters recognized by the State. It is associated with Nantes University ( 70000 students) and benefits from the support of Europe, the French State, the Region, the Municipality of Nantes and the Chamber of Commerce.

The philosophy is clear : professionalisation and employment for the graduates who objectives must be the top-strategic position.

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