Strategic Design Leadership (M.S.)
Accelerate your career. Join a global network of design leaders who bridge disciplines to build the products, services, and systems shaping tomorrow’s world.
Advance without pausing your career as you learn to use design to see—and build—what’s next.
The M.S. in Strategic Design Leadership connects experienced professionals through a work-compatible, part-time format with remote learning and in-person summits that sharpen leadership and expand influence. You’ll learn how to align human needs with business realities—without losing sight of the imaginative leaps that spark innovation and create possibilities.
Program Overview
With our part-time program, you can apply material from one evening’s class to organizational challenges the next day—guided by faculty who bridge theory and practice as both scholars and seasoned industry leaders.
The Strategic Design Leadership curriculum is structured for immediate application—blending theory with hands-on practice to explore emerging innovation methods, market insight, and human-centered design. Small class sizes with a committed cohort of peers create a deeply collaborative environment. You’ll learn how to build effective innovation initiatives at your organization through mastery in the areas of Design-Led Insights, Strategic Innovation Methods, and Leadership & Activation.
To complement the online curriculum, Strategic Design Leadership students are invited to attend Immersions—three-day, in-person experiences held at the midpoint of each fall and spring semester. These events offer a valuable opportunity to engage directly with your cohort, faculty, and visiting experts. You’ll explore emerging topics in design leadership, exchange insights across diverse organizational contexts, and strengthen your professional network.
Career Opportunities
Our Strategic Design Leadership alumni hold key positions at top organizations, launch boundary-pushing ventures, and drive meaningful change through design strategy in a range of roles and industries, such as:
- Vice President of Design
- Business Design Leader
- Design Strategist & Researcher
Here are a few interesting courses in the M.S. in Strategic Design Leadership:
- Modes of Human Experience Analysis of issues involved in a design project with a human factors perspective is an important step during user research and the design development process. Knowing the basic concepts and principles of human factors will enable students to be user centered in their approach.
- Business Design In this course, students will develop a practical understanding of how business models are used to create appropriate value for participants in a value web, such as core business, its customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
- Adaptive Leadership Explore different established and emerging change management models and their application to design.
You must complete the Illinois Tech graduate application, regardless of which graduate program you wish to pursue. Visit our admission website to learn more about what information and documents you need to apply.
Ideal applicants for the M.S. in Strategic Design Leadership have 8 years minimum of professional experience, including leadership responsibilities.
Tuition and Fees
Learn more about the university’s general tuition and fees, visit the Student Accounting website.
Featured Faculty
Tomoko Ichikawa
Tom MacTavish
Jeremy Alexis
Peter Zapf
Trained architect Zubair Bhaidani takes design to another dimension—from built environment to lived environment—with an M.S. in Strategic Design Leadership.
Zubair Bhaidani (M.S. Strategic Design Leadership ’25)
Kunitake Saso recognized the limitations that came with a linear way of thinking in his career as a brand marketer and began studying design methods, later writing a book about what he learned and creating his own strategic design consultancy.
Kunitake Saso (M.D.M. ’13)