P 80
Design School Kolding 50 Years, 50 Voices of Design
“ Throughout his career Jonas Smedegaard Buus has proved the strategic potential of design in an intangible context. As a director in one of the largest design companies in the world he has contributed to the development of design as a business area ” Quote from the Selection Panel
Jonas Smedegaard Buus Design – a Mindset to Bring to the Organisation
Section 2 2007—1998
Jonas Smedegaard Buus is not a big fan of design stars. – That’s not what the world needs going forward. It needs designers who can cooperate and facilitate processes, who are open to new methods and new technologies and who has a good business sense, he says. Conversely, he believes that designers who possess these qualities can create great value for the companies that hire them. – And the big corporations are aware of that. Many of the largest companies in the world are already working with strategic design and related methodologies, he says. He works for one of these companies himself, Danske Bank, where he is Head of Customer Experience in Danske Bank’s MobileLife, an innovation unit that Danske Bank has established parallel to the banking business. The rationale is that innovation cannot happen fast enough in the bank proper. The purpose of MobileLife is to prepare the bank for threats from outside. It cannot risk a Kodak moment because it has failed to notice a change in the threat pattern ahead of time and has not acted fast enough. Previously the threat would come from other Danish banks, but today it may come from a new technology, changes in the behaviour, companies other than banks or maybe not even Danish, but foreign companies. Some of the staff of 150 are already bank employees with in-depth knowledge of bank business and processes. Others have experience from design firms and start-ups; some are experts in IT development, processes, analysis, research and strategy. Jonas’ department employs for example anthropologists, service designers and designers with experience in branding, ux and digital design who operate in the tension field between design of services and experiences.
Right now the group is working on a new service, JUNE, which is supposed to make investment available to everyone. – Today you must have a lot of money, great insight and help from an advisor in order to get started. With JUNE you will gain access to a digital platform that makes it affordable, transparent and easy for everyone, he explains. Jonas Smedegaard Buus’ journey to the bank goes from Design School Kolding via his own agency, which he ran with his two brothers in a garage in Skelbækgade, a Master’s degree from the Danish School of Design, jobs in some of Denmark’s major agencies to Designit, Europe’s largest design company. Jonas Smedegaard Buus, born 1975
– Designit was love at first sight, he says. And the love was reciprocal – he became a director and gained experience with sales, budgets, management and strategy. But now he has moved, from the consulting side to the customers’ side. He has a passionate belief that design can be used to make entirely new products that can change the world; he feels he has moved from the outside where consultants operate, down into the core of the business, and he has a firm belief that if we use design thinking correctly, it contains what is needed in order to bring something new and attractive – something never seen before – to the market. – With design we can meet those needs, needs we may not even knew existed, but which we have helped to identify. That is a mindset that we can bring to the organisation. Jonas Smedegaard Buus refuses to find an illustration for this portrait in some of the things he made as a designer. – You can have a process image with a lot of post-it notes. That is how I have often used my education, he says. And the things I’m most proud of having been part of have only been possible through close cooperation with customers and colleagues. I don’t want to take credit for that.
Education: 2003–2006: MA, Danish School of Design, Communication Design; 1999– 2002: BA, Design School Kolding, Visual Communication. Work Experience: 2016– Head of Customer Experience, Danske Bank’s MobileLife; 2015–2016: Corporate Entrepreneur; 2015: Executive Director, Designit; 2013–2015: Director, Designit; 2011–2013: Design Manager, Designit; 2010–2011: Lead Designer, Designit; 2007–2010: Senior Digital Art Director, Valtech; 2006–2007: Designer, 1508; 2002–2006: Self-employed, Rhesus B