Founder & Managing Director – Design Thinker Institute

Adjunct Faculty – Organizational Development, Denver University

Affiliate Faculty – Research Methodology, Antioch University

Organization Development Lead – ASB Bank, 2021-2022

Change Lead (contract) – IAG NZ, 2020-2021

Change Lead (contract), BNZ, 2019-2022

Snr. Change Manager (contract), Westpac NZ, 2018-2019

VP, Small Business Strategy & Change, Bank of America, 2014-2017

AVP, Regulatory Change, Bank of America, 2011-2014

Management Consultant, NTT Data Services, 2009-2011

Post-Doctoral Study, Applied Behavioral Economics – Texas A&M University

Phd, Organizational Science, Design Thinking – Antioch University (2017) 

Master of Science, Organizational Development, Behavior Science – Queens University of Charlotte (2016)

Certificate in Executive Coaching – Queens University of Charlotte (2016)

MBA, Leadership and Organizational Change – Queens University of Charlotte (2012)

Bachelor of Technology, Visual Communication & Design – State University of NY (2005)

Chesson, D. (2021). The ethics of design. In E. Elgar (Ed.), Mastering Ethics in Organizations (pp. xx-xx). Cheltenham, UK. (Publication due September 2021)

Chesson, D. (2020). Design Thinker Profile: Capabilities for Overcoming Barriers to Change. Organization Development Journal, 38(2).

Chesson, D., Steen, R., & Vinard, A. (2020). There is No “I” in Core: Scientists and Administrators Talk. Journal of Biomolecular Techniques: JBT, 31(Suppl), S42.

Chesson, D., Kusy, M. (2019). Design Thinker Profile: Capabilities for Driving Change in Healthcare. Journal of Medical Practice Management, (Nov/Dec 2019).

Chesson, D. (2018). Meeting 21st Century Organizational Challenges with Design Thinking. Organization Development Journal, 36(3).

Chesson, D. (2017). Design Thinker Profile: Creating and Validating a Scale for Measuring Design Thinking Capabilities.

Design Thinker Profile: Six Questions for Leading Change | Agile on the Beach NZ 2023 https://www.agileonthebeach.co.nz/dani-chesson

There is no ‘I’ in Core | Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (2020) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7424883/

21st Century Leadership Skills | International Leadership Association (2017)

Design Thinking, So What?! | Human Resource Summit (2016)

Data, Design, and the Why | American Marketing Association (2011)

After nearly 2 years of aimlessly wandering, moving from various temp jobs, and dropping out of university twice, I discovered design and fell in love.

Completed a design degree in record time. When you know what you want to spend your life doing, you want to get started right away. I was fortunate enough to find paid work in design while completing my degree so, I left school with pretty awesome portfolio and real life experience.

Got recruited by a bank to do process design work, I insisted this isn’t what I do, but they wanted someone with design skills. I was too curious to pass it up, plus it was only meant to be a three month project. On a personal note, the marriage skeptic got married.

That three-month contract…four years later still in banking and now I found myself leading change. Started an MBA program because it is the done thing when you work in banking. Hubby and I visit New Zealand and fall in love with it, start plotting our move across the world.

Greg and I both graduate with our MBA (yep, same program, same time). Completed study experiences in South Africa, Signapore, and China. Made some awesome friends! Could not shake the feeling that I had more learning to do.

After several years of leading large-scale organizational change, I was frustrated. Everyone says they want change, everyone agrees why change is needed, until it comes time to change, then it feels like pushing a boulder uphill. How might we do change differently, better? This was the burning question that led to my doctoral journey.

Discovering Design Thinking led to countless hours of research until I arrived at a gap in the research. Who are Design Thinkers? What are their capabilities? To explore this path it became apparent I need to go back and do some Master’s level classes. So, as crazy as it sounds, I enrolled in a Master’s program, while in a PhD program, while holding down a fulltime corporate job.

With my dissertation study in full flight, in February, I quit my corporate job, sold our home, and moved to New Zealand, all while collecting and analyzing data. My goal was to defend and graduate in July…skipping all the drama and trauma…I made it. Dr Dani Chesson! The Design Thinker Profile was born.

What do you get when you add a newly minted PhD in a foreign country, with no network, and no big audacious goal? A sobbing mess trying to figure it all out. I have achieved two big life goals within a small space of time…now what? Have I peaked? Was this it? I was figuring it out while continuing to validate the Design Thinker profile. Published my first peer reviewed article.

I didn’t know what to do next so I went back to what I knew, banking and leading change. This gave me an opportunity to gain local experience, meet people, and test out some of my research findings. Turns out when you put yourself out there cool things happen. Established the Design Thinker Institute to focus on creating awareness about the innate human power of design. Published my second article.

Arrives: Just when life for us was starting to settle in New Zealand, COVID-19 arrives. I was thankful for all those years in global corporates working remotely with teams all around the world, so while most of the world was transition to new ways of working, I was going back to something I knew to do. I even got to help others make the transition. Published my third article.

Once again, I quit my corproate job, to focus full time on the Design Thinker Institute. The Design Thinker Profile is ready for commercial use. Launched the Design Thinker Podcast. Publised a book chapter on the ethical implications of human centered design.