David Dunne delivers business design to SFU’s MBA programs

David Dunne, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Beedie School of Business

Whether it’s in the delivery of state-of-the-art smart phones or innovative health care, design thinking is an increasingly critical element for businesses and organizations in 2012. For David Dunne, Beedie School of Business Adjunct Senior Fellow, the intersection of design and business translates into major challenges and opportunities for managers, entrepreneurs and other leaders.

Design thinking is defined as approaching management problems just as designers approach design problems. Though it has been traditionally associated with product and service design, it also has important implications for management, something recognized increasingly by both academic research and the business press.

Dunne, an award-winning management educator, author and consultant who is jointly appointed with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, joined Simon Fraser University earlier this year. He combines international experience as a senior executive with an outstanding record as an academic. He also consults to organizations in the health care sector on designing customer experience and teaches problem solving, innovation and marketing to students and executives throughout the world.

This summer, he is bringing his unique background to SFU’s graduate business programs. Dunne teaches the class Design Thinking in SFU’s popular Management of Technology MBA program. Starting in the fall, he will also teach a class in design thinking for the first cohort of SFU’s Executive MBA in Indigenous Business and Leadership program.

The delivery of design thinking in the latter EMBA promises to take many forms, from visual renderings to storytelling. Ultimately, Dunne will help participants – who have Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds – to think about the way they think.

In addition to the realms of creativity and design, Dunne maintains strong interest in areas such as branding and marketing, advertising, crisis management and customer experience. (Dunne was formerly with global consumer goods company Unilever in the UK and Canada, where he led a marketing division and was responsible for the success of several well-known consumer brands.)

Additionally, having taught extensively at Hong Kong University as part of the Rotman School’s undergraduate program, he maintains a focus on Asia and Pacific Rim business affairs.

He also writes regularly at his blog, where he provides commentary and insights on a number of business and management issues, from customer experience to advertising campaigns to innovation in health care. Visit http://daviddunne.wordpress.com to view his most recent articles.