Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation

Part method, part memoir: Bethune shows design as strategic, multidisciplinary problem-solving while recounting his path as a Black professional from engineering to Nike to consulting. It links the SDF's Procedures to its Social-Responsibility motto, with diversity treated as a genuine source of design strength. Bethune traces his own path from an engineering role at Westinghouse, through designing for Nike, to running his own design and innovation consultancy, using that journey to show how design can be applied strategically rather than only aesthetically. Diversity, equity and inclusion run through the book as a recurring theme: Bethune argues that as design is used for innovation, it also has to reckon with the ecological consequences of decisions and the threads of systemic injustice bound up in them. He writes for readers who have felt like the outsider in a room, and for colleagues who want to build more genuinely inclusive workplaces.