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"This is exactly what I needed and has all the things nobody talks about."
A Playbook to Open Up the Black Box of Business and Drive Design Forward.
CDO School is a membership-support network focused on creating, organizing, and distributing resources to the individuals and teams who lead design.
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"I can’t recommend this enough to other design leaders to get to the next level."
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"In short, CDO School is the best money I have spent on my career."
1. Get the Playbook
2. Take a Course
3. Receive Support
4. Reimagine Your Value
TRUSTED BY THOUSANDS OF LEADERS FROM TOP COMPANIES
Trying to make forward progress as a design leader on your own can be frustrating
if you don’t have a playbook…
Your momentum stalls or (worse) dips
You put everything on your shoulders to figure out alone
You struggle to what is and isn’t working
And that leads to sleepless nights and constant overwhelm. We don’t want that for you. CDO School has given thousands of leaders clear, actionable plays to introduce real alternatives for business as usual. Our playbook will work for you, too.
You spend a lot of energy trying to convince skeptics
You waste time chasing ideas that don’t move the needle
You spend more time guessing vs. taking intentional actions
Learn and apply a playbook to redefine your relevance and value as a design leader.
A curriculum of 13 on-demand courses made specifically for design leaders doing the work
Position Design to Win
9 sections • 139 lessons
Business Essentials for Designers
1 sections • 13 lessons
Prioritize The Big Picture
1 sections • 14 lessons
Make Influential Arguments
1 sections • 14 lessons
CDO School gives you a systematic process to grow your judgment as a leader. It’s perfect if you want to evaluate, interpret, and adjust how good design drives good business.
Become Business Savvy
Connect Craft to Operations
Describe and Estimate Your ROI
Link Design to the Bottom Line
Measure & Track Your Impact
Communicate Your Strategic Value
Increase Product Quality
Position You Team for Success
13+
on-demand courses
100+
hours of video content
350+
members
30+
proprietary, exclusive frameworks
150+
tools and templates
1500+
community posts
What’s is like inside?
On-Demand Courses
For just $300/year, you get access to all our on-demand courses, member-exclusive events, and our community of design leaders and executives.
Plays
Designed to bring leadership out of thinking and into action, these custom, step-by-step activities are perfect for bringing meaningful change to life.
Community
Share your challenges, ask for feedback, and find peers you can lean on, and learn with others in a space you can feel safe in.
Workshop Templates
Bring your biggest lessons back to work with you with our custom Figma, Mural, Miro, Google Sheets, Docs, and PDF templates and tools.
Live Events
Join relevant and timely discussions with those who share your responsibilities and pressures and others who have done it before.
Resource Library
Gain full access to no-BS lessons, proven frameworks, and tactical toolkits, all delivered by leaders who've been in your shoes and have your back.
Upcoming live events
4.11.24: 🪜 How-to | Pick Winning Plays
4.16.24: 🧠 Concept | LeaderOps - Scaling Good Management Practices
4.25.24: 🙋 AMA | How I learned to hire the right candidates; with Rebekah Hickey
5.9.24: 👀 Show & Tell | Design portfolio feedback using Design Mentor GPT - Brian Perez
5.14.24: 🏫 CDO School Orientation
CDO School is ideal for Senior IC, DesignOps, or Management Leaders. Our playbook is not tailored for Junior or early career professionals.
93%
member satisfaction
1100+
alumni worldwide
+100
member referral score
AS FEATURED IN
An emerging platform to recapture the maverick, creative spirit of design and chart a new path forward for design leadership.
Brave UX Podcast
I’ve been hearing really good things about CDO School. Their mission is to elevate business knowledge now, so that we can more effectively articulate what [design’s] value is and strengthen our design organizations.
HOW IT WORKS
CDO School is the system I’ve created while leading multiple teams and teaching thousands of design leaders like you. It covers the entire strategic process of positioning design to be an indispensable business unit.
We know time is of the essence. Start out with small, intentional experiments to relieve pressure and make forward progress now.
Grow foundational business, product, communication, strategy, coaching, planning, & measuring skills at a pace that works for you.
Learn how to approach your leadership with a trusted, repeatable system so you never get stuck again.
✓
✓
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1
Join CDO School
For just $300/year, you get access to all our on-demand courses, member-exclusive webinars, and our community of design leaders and executives.
2
Get and Run a Play
Our plays give you actionable steps to tackle your biggest challenges right now so you have more opportunities to grow design maturity and increase product quality.
3
Take a Course
Our courses give you the fundamental skills you’ll need to represent the design as part of a larger ecosystem and help you build your influence beyond design itself.
4
Grow Your Value
With a plan, you’ll be amazed at how your confidence skyrockets, those overwhelming feelings subside, and how design’s relevance to business expands.
Hi. I’m Ryan.
At some point in my career, I likely had the same responsibilities you have today. I’ve designed products and services at Apple, Comcast, and Sony. I’ve built and led design teams at EA (twice) and Nestlé. I was an executive at USAA.
I’ve spoken at conferences worldwide and coached many design executives. I wrote a book called Business Thinking for Designers that’s been downloaded over 50k times. But none of those have been as fulfilling as teaching.
For the last four years, I have been teaching everything I know about leading relevant and valued design teams through intimate, cohort-based courses. During that time, I’ve developed systems, playbooks, frameworks, and lessons I wish I had while leading in-house teams. Now, I’m sharing all those lessons with you.
Most Design Leaders Don’t Have a Playbook They Feel Confident In
As a design leader, you have to be everything to everyone. You’re supposed to be a strong leader, a savvy operator AND a stellar craftsperson. Oh don’t forget to be good at business, by the way. Also, can you be a bit more agreeable? It’s exhausting to think about.
CDO School exists to eliminate “design leader overwhelm” by giving you simple plays you can follow to optimize your efforts for meaningful impact and high value. We want you to have confidence you can count on when it comes to shifting the dynamics of how decisions are made. That’s why our plays are easy to implement, proven to work, and only focus on the parts of your work that you need to focus on.
When you join CDO School, you’ll dive right into learning how to position your team for business impact. You’ll quickly execute plays to learn which parts of your approach are working well and which parts are holding your team back. You’ll have access to the foundational knowledge and theory behind our plays if you choose to dig deeper.
From there, you’ll make a customized playbook to help you implement actions that will take your practice, your people, and your leadership, to the next level. Imagine how good it will feel to be confident that your decisions will be good for your people, customers, operations, craft, products, and yes, business.
No more guessing. No more overwhelm. Just a whole lot of confidence that you are giving design, and yourself, every opportunity to succeed.
Your Subscription Gives You Access to:
30+ Actionable Plays
13+ On-Demand Courses
Interactive Community of Design Leaders & Executives
Member-Exclusive Live Events
150+ Tools & Templates
The 130-page CDO School Design Org Strategy digital workbook
OUR PLANS
CORE
$300/yr
30+ Actionable Plays
13+ On-Demand Courses
Interactive Community of Design Leaders & Executives
Member-Exclusive Live Events
150+ Tools & Templates
The 130-page CDO School Design Org Strategy digital workbook
10% Discount on CDO School Live Courses & Workshops
PRO
$500/yr
30+ Actionable Plays
13+ On-Demand Courses
Interactive Community of Design Leaders & Executives
Member-Exclusive Live Events
150+ Tools & Templates
The 130-page CDO School Design Org Strategy digital workbook
20% Discount on CDO School Live Courses & Workshops
Peer Advisory Team (P.A.T.) matching service
Quarterly check-ins with a CDO School Leader In Residence