Gender Male
Dan Williams is a well-known and respected leader in the field of industrial and experience design and emerging technology development. In his 30 years of practice, he has been at the forefront of change and definition of design strategies for consumer and technology- oriented companies. He has been a pioneer in incorporating technology planning,
brand management and experience driven design methods into the creative development process. Williams is considered a leading strategic designer with extensive experience managing advanced concepts, industrial design and product development teams and programs.
Dan was Vice President of Design for Reebok International where he was responsible for the design and development of new products for the athletic specialty, fitness and consumer lifestyle markets. He was also Director of Design for Motorola’s Advanced Products Group located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a multi-disciplinary design team focused on next generation product concepts and new business proposals for emerging markets. The team worked closely with academic research centers such as MIT, coupling new technology into consumer-oriented product solutions for communication. They also consulted to Motorola Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the company, assisting in the evaluation of technologies developed by early stage companies for their application to markets and customers served by Motorola.
Williams is most widely known for his leadership as Director of Consumer Design for Motorola’s Personal Communications Sector, where he was responsible for designing mobile telephones, messaging devices and consumer radio products through a globally dispersed design organization operating in six locations around the globe. Iconic products such as the MicroTAC Ultralite, the StarTAC product families and the V60 and V120 mobile phones, collectively representing 100 million units sold worldwide and accounting for over $10 billion dollars in revenue, are a few of the many successful products developed under his leadership. During his tenure, the group received recognition and numerous awards both nationally and internationally, including I.D. Magazine’s Top Dog, several Business Week IDEA awards, and inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art and Cooper Hewitt permanent collections. Prior to joining Motorola in 1987, Dan’s earlier qualifications included industrial design positions and entrepreneurial endeavors in company’s developing medical instruments, computer and communication equipment.
He has been interviewed by publications, including the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ID and Wired Magazines about design experiences and emerging trends. He is a frequent guest lecturer at MIT Media Lab, the Harvard School of Business and Graduate School of Design and has received 50 patents for his work in the fields of computer, medical equipment and mobile communication products. In 2005, he received an Innovator of the Year award from the New England Business & Technology Association for his work on the use of wireless technology for patient vital signs monitoring. Dan serves as board advisor to the Design Management Institute and the Tom Peters Company. He’s earned degrees in Engineering from Wentworth Institute of Technology and Industrial Design from Syracuse University and also completed course studies at Northwestern and MIT Sloan School’s Entrepreneurship Program.
