You already know design matters. The question is whether it's showing up where the decisions actually get made.
In most organizations, it isn't. Design lives downstream — brought in to execute, to polish, to make something look finished after the strategic choices have already been made by someone else. The result is predictable: products that look like everything else on the shelf, brands that say the same things in the same way, and leadership teams that sense something is off but can't quite name it.
That's the gap I fill.
I work as a fractional Chief Design Officer — embedded in your leadership team, not as a vendor on a call sheet. I'm there to shape the brief, not just execute it. To connect what your company builds to what the market actually values. To make design a driver of enterprise value, not a line item.
I've been doing this for over 25 years. I've served as Creative Director for Georg Jensen, Humanscale, and HBF. I've brought more than 200 products to market and hold over two dozen patents. Phaidon published my monograph — the first for an American designer. I've been nominated for the National Design Award seven times.
But credentials aren't the point. The point is that I've sat in enough boardrooms and walked enough factory floors to know the difference between design that impresses other designers and design that moves a business forward. They're rarely the same thing.
A fractional engagement means you get senior design leadership without the overhead of a full-time executive hire. I work directly with founders, CEOs, operating partners, and boards — typically two to three days a week — to clarify where design can create the most value, align the organization around that direction, and build internal capability that lasts after I leave.
The goal is momentum, not dependence.
This tends to work well for portfolio companies under private equity, growth-stage businesses at an inflection point, and established organizations that have outgrown their current approach to design but aren't ready to build a full team from the inside.
If that sounds familiar, I'd welcome a conversation.
studio@toddbracher.com
— Todd Bracher