Design Ventura Judging Panel 2021
This year’s Pitching Event is going to take place at Winchester House on Tuesday 22 March 2022. The top shortlisted schools will each submit a 3-minute pitch film, which will be reviewed by our panel of industry experts. The shortlisted state schools will also have a live 10-minute Q&A session where the judges can ask them questions about their product ideas. Here are this year’s panel:
Christoph Woermann
Global Head of Corporate Bank Marketing at Deutsche Bank. Christoph has a passion for garden design and is an ardent supporter of the Design Ventura project and a seasoned member of the judging panel.
Preena Patel
Preena Patel is the Buying and Merchandising Manager at the Design Museum with over a decade of experience in retail positioning, licensing, brand buying and product development and is accountable for delivery of commercially successful ranges instore and online.
Preena is an advocate for sustainability as standard in retail, and hosted a pitch for 50 business to justify why they consider themselves ‘sustainable’ before re-strategizing the retail offer to feature eco conscious product at core
Preena is also Retail strategist for multi-disciplinary artist Yinka Ilori. Preena has a creative and commercial approach to retail aided by her training in fashion design, has obsessive passion for product, and takes great satisfaction from watching customer reactions in store!
Rosa Bertoli
Rosa Bertoli was born in Udine, Italy, and now lives in London. Since 2014, she has been the Design Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees design content for the print and online editions, as well as special editorial projects. Through her role at Wallpaper*, she has written extensively about all areas of design. Rosa has been speaker and moderator for various design talks and conferences including London Craft Week, Maison & Objet, The Italian Cultural Institute (London), Zaha Hadid Design, Kartell and Frieze Art Fair. Rosa has been on judging panels for the Chart Architecture Award, the Dutch Design Awards and the DesignGuild Marks. She has written for numerous English and Italian language publications, and worked as a content and communication consultant for fashion and design brands.
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 and taught furniture design at the Royal College of Art. Sebastian is now a trustee of the Design Museum, Chair of the Conran Foundation and Conran + Partners, Visiting Professor of Design & Innovation at Bristol Robotics Lab, Designer in Residence at University of Sheffield engineering faculty; he also writes & lectures on innovation.
Yuri Suzuki
The Design Ventura 2021 brief setter, Yuri Suzuki is a sound artist, designer and electronic musician. He is Partner at design firm Pentagram and works out of studios in London and Margate. His work ranges from small products to large scale installations. His practice uses sound and interaction to look at the relationship between people and their environments.