Design Ventura Judging Panel 2017

This year’s pitching event is going to take place this week. We will welcome the top 10 shortlisted schools to the Design Museum for a chance to pitch their design ideas in front of a panel of industry experts. Here are this year’s panel:

Alice Black

Alice is Director of the Design Museum. As well as developing audiences, exhibitions and programming over the last ten years, Alice has led the museum’s project to transform the former Commonwealth Institute into the new home for the Design Museum. Alice began her career in banking in New York and her experience in the UK spans work in the public and private sector, in large, multi-site national museums as well as independent museums.

Anna Bullus

Anna studied Three Dimensional Design at Camberwell College of Art and University of Brighton. During her degree Anna specialised in plastics and material experimentation, which led to her developing an interest in recycling. After gaining experience as a Product Designer with Hulger, and Case Furniture as a Junior Product Developer in London, Anna went on to launch her company Gum Drop Ltd which recycles gum waste into a range of products such as gum bins and wellington boots.

Christoph Woermann

Christoph is Managing Director, Global Head of Marketing, Global Transaction Banking at Deutsche Bank. Christoph has a passion for garden design and has been an ardent supporter of the Design Ventura project and a seasoned member of the judging panel.

Naomi Cleaver

Naomi is an interior designer specialising in homes. She is also a writer and broadcaster.

Sebastian Conran

Sebastian wanted to be an inventor whilst at school and got A levels in Maths Physics and Chemistry; then he studied Industrial Design Engineering at Central St. Martins, where he gave the Sex Pistols their first booking and designed record sleeves and posters for The Clash. After this he worked at corporate identity consultancy Wolff Olins followed by leading hard-goods development at Mothercare, after which he founded Sebastian Conran Associates design studio in 1986, which he continues to lead.

Sebastian is Visiting Professor of Design & Innovation at Bristol Robotics Lab, Designer in Residence at University of Sheffield engineering faculty, taught furniture design at the Royal College of Art, lectures frequently and advises government on design.