Mariela Sotomayor
“How can organizations use design to innovate at the pace of digital transformation and hyper-competition era while keeping a purpose-driven mindset?”
Mariela Sotomayor’s career began in Peru, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design. Her experience in furniture and home goods exports, coupled with her volunteer work in rural communities to create sustainable structures, motivated her to pursue a Master’s degree in sustainable and social impact design in London.
Upon completing her graduate degree, Mariela founded her own company that went beyond product design, focusing on creating innovative strategies, solutions, and experiences. This approach was pioneering in Peru at the time. As design thinking gained popularity, Banco de Crédito del Perú, Peru’s largest bank, hired her to join their innovation team. Her contributions were significant, and she was instrumental in building a design practice and driving the adoption of design thinking as a core capability throughout the organization.
She currently serves as the Senior Director of Design at Loadsmart, a startup that is revolutionizing the logistics industry. In her role, Mariela is responsible for establishing design and innovation goals, building and nurturing a dynamic team, and driving growth. Mariela’s approach to design as a dynamic capability highlights the potential for organizations to navigate economic complexity and drive business innovation through a modern organizational model that recognizes the importance of design in bridging the gap between economic and social dimensions.
What are the key questions that you're asking in the work that you're doing in the PhD program?
How can organizations leverage the distributed knowledge of design as a strategic driver to build dynamic capabilities, increase economic complexity, and achieve competitive advantage? How can Design drive strategy across organizational models?
Design has emerged as a crucial driver of innovation and purpose-driven agendas in the ever-changing business landscape. While individuals understand and use design effectively, its institutionalization at the organizational level is lacking. The transfer of design knowledge and know-how from individuals to the collective and its application in the context of production is not yet a widespread reality. While Human Centered Design and Design thinking have made significant contributions, the question remains: how can the use of design knowledge help organizations increase their economic complexity and achieve growth across organizational models? Design as a dynamic capability holds the key to unlocking growth and fostering economic complexity, but many questions still need answering.
How does it feel to collaborate with Carlos?
Collaborating with Carlos is an invigorating experience. He has a knack for challenging my perspective and pushing me to think beyond my initial opinions, which I find incredibly stimulating. His ideas and insights often spark further research and encourage me to reconsider my assumptions.
Moreover, I feel fully supported by Carlos during our collaboration. He consistently backs me up and I trust him implicitly. His unwavering confidence in my abilities gives me the reassurance I need to take risks and explore new ideas. Overall, working with Carlos has been a rewarding and empowering experience.
What collaborations do you envision for the future of your work?
I strongly believe that the future of my work will require collaborations that bring design and innovation to the forefront of economic growth in the country. While there are a few individuals with expertise in design and innovation, there is a need to raise awareness about the potential of design to create positive change in different sectors.
I envision collaborations with organizations like ID (Institute of Design) to establish and share knowledge that can push design and innovation further. This partnership can serve as a platform to bridge the gap between design and other fields, and to develop a shared understanding of how design can contribute to economic and social progress.
I believe that such collaborations are crucial not just for the private sector, but for the country as a whole. By integrating design principles into public policy and governance, we can create more inclusive and sustainable solutions that benefit everyone. This will require a concerted effort to build a culture of design thinking and problem-solving, and to establish networks that can support and sustain this work over the long term.