Designing better businesses for a post-COVID world

Good morning.

The collision of COVID and a business technology revolution has given new urgency to the role of design in business. Companies are reinventing themselves, out of necessity and opportunity. And the process of reinvention requires a kind of creativity that isn’t often taught in business school.

That’s why Fortune created Brainstorm Design. We are working over the next year in partnership with Salesforce and IBM to focus on how to use design principles to design better businesses in a post-COVID world. We’ll be holding the first in a series of intimate conversations next Tuesday, with PepsiCo’s chief design officer, Mauro Porcini, and chief commercial officer, Ram Krishnan. The two will lead a discussion on how design thinking can best be used to create business value. Also on hand: Deanna Van Buren, co-founder and executive director of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, about design’s role in building healthy communities.

Brainstorm Design is by invitation only, intended for those working on major design challenges within business. We still have a few spaces open. If interested, let me know, or go here for more.

And since it is Friday, some feedback. Our annual Businessperson of the Year list attracted a lot of interest. A sampling:

“Congratulations on a HUGE week! Elon (Musk) and Lisa (Su) #1 & #2 are bold choices, provocative even. Makes Fortune what it is always, #leader.”
—BW

“I don’t understand the left and journos constant obsession with what characterizes leadership. Patton was a prick, MacArthur was an alcoholic, JFK and Bill Clinton were womanizers, Jobs was caustic, Obama was and still is…condescending …I could go on for hours.“
—KZ

“You captured the zeitgeist of Elon perfectly. I feel the same way. he is at turns inspirational and offensive, admirable and frustrating.  I’ll hold out hope that someday in the third act of his career that he finds more equanimity and perspective in terms of how he treats other people and himself.“
—SF

More news below.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

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