Chris Hacker, Chair of Product Design, ArtCenter College, Pasadena

Chris is also chief design officer of Hacker Design Group, a design consultancy specializing in product and brand design management and sustainability design for a vast number of clients. He was named Chair of ArtCenter’s Product Design department in 2019.

He is an honored friend of Spark who served on our first jury in 2007. Welcome home, Chris!

Prior to assuming the Department Chair position, he had served as a core member of the Graduate Graphic Design department faculty since 2016, helping to develop the curriculum with a focus on strategy, design management and professional preparation.

Previously, Chris was Vice President Marketing and Design at Herman Miller and was Creative Director, Consumer and Specialty. He provided design and marketing leadership to the Herman Miller Collection and Consumer businesses and Geiger, he guided product, experience, and communication design that supported the strategic objectives of these businesses. Prior to joining Herman Miller, Chris was the Chief Design Officer for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies. The teams managed project work in all three divisions of J&J and corporate work for the central functions including communications, HR and facilities. In addition, Hacker led the environmental sustainability effort at the J&J Consumer Companies.

Hacker’s passion is bringing awareness to designers and other business people of their power in the business world to make sustainable design a key paradigm of design process and therefore make the products and materials produced lighter on the planet.

Chris was Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Design for Aveda™ prior to joining Johnson & Johnson.

Under his leadership, Aveda was awarded the 2004 National Design Award for Corporate Achievement from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Chris received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design from the University of Cincinnati College of Design Architecture and Art. He is a recognized expert in Corporate Design Leadership and is a frequent national speaker on design & design sustainability.

He is a member and past Chair of the Global Agenda Council-Design for the World Economic Forum.