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Greg Holderfield Appointed Co-director of MMM Program

Greg Holderfield, Segal Design Institute fellow and codirector of the Master of Product Design and Development program at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, has been appointed codirector of the MMM program, which offers a dual-degree from McCormick and the Kellogg School of Management.

Before joining McCormick full-time earlier this year, Holderfield was previously the vice president of strategic design and innovation for ARC Worldwide - Leo Burnett and an adjunct lecturer in the MPD2 program. He has had a 19-year career as an internationally recognized industrial designer who has led design thinking and consumer insights innovation for Fortune 500 companies.

Holderfield replaces Don Norman, who has served as codirector of the MMM Program since 2007.

"Don brought new energy to the program by bringing an emphasis on design to complement the operations track of the program," said Julio M. Ottino, dean of McCormick. "Three years after adding a design emphasis, the MMM Program was one of two Northwestern programs among the "World's Best Design Schools" recognized by BusinessWeek. Greg is a passionate advocate for interdisciplinary design and will continue to develop and augment the design emphasis of the program."

The MMM program awards students a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management and the Master of Engineering Management from McCormick. The program has a special emphasis on systems thinking, which means understanding the whole rather than simply the individual parts, and design thinking, which means looking beyond the stated need to identify the real issues to be addressed.

Holderfield has received more than 25 design awards, including two prestigious German "Red Dot" awards, the Japan "Good Design" award, and the IF International Design Forum award. He is also the recipient of four "Industrial Design Excellence Awards" (IDEA) presented jointly by Business Week and the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), including the "Gold" for Industrial Equipment Design.
Holderfield also holds 21 design and utility patents.

Holderfield received his BFA in industrial design from the University of Illinois and received his MS in product development from Northwestern University.