Lead Design That Gets Noticed and Taken Seriously in Business.
CDO School is a management school for design leaders. Our courses, content, resources, and events help you confidently shift design from business optional to essential.
TRUSTED BY THOUSANDS OF LEADERS FROM TOP COMPANIES
Trying to lead design forward through constant change can be demoralizing
if you don’t have a playbook…
- Your momentum stalls or (worse) dips
- You put everything on your shoulders to figure out alone
- You struggle to what is and isn’t working
- You spend a lot of energy trying to convince skeptics
- You waste time chasing ideas that don’t move the needle
- You spend more time guessing vs. taking intentional actions
And that leads to sleepless nights and constant overwhelm. We don’t want that for you. CDO School has given thousands of leaders clear, actionable plays to introduce real alternatives for business as usual. Our playbook will work for you, too.
Learn and apply a playbook to expand your clarity and confidence as a design leader.
Popular Courses
Design Org Strategy
A 9-module, 139-lesson design leadership course to determine your Design Org Strategy by establishing the vision, priorities, measurable outcomes, and tactics of your team and the plan to execute.
Business Basics for Designers
A design leadership course to learn the language of business and communicate how design impacts the big picture.
Predicting Business Impact for Designers
A design leadership course to convert insights and opinions into compelling, statistical evidence that your work is awesome.
CDO School gives you a systematic process to grow your judgment as a leader. It’s perfect if you want to evaluate, interpret, and adjust how good design drives good business.
- Become Business Savvy
- Connect Craft to Operations
- Describe and Estimate Your ROI
- Link Design to the Bottom Line
- Measure & Track Your Impact
- Communicate Your Strategic Value
- Increase Product Quality
- Position You Team for Success
13+
on-demand courses
100+
hours of video content
350+
active members
30+
proprietary frameworks
150+
tools and templates
1500+
community posts
93%
student satisfaction
1200+
alumni
+100
referral score
What’s is like inside?
What’s included?
On-Demand Courses
For just $300/year, you get access to all our on-demand courses, member-exclusive events, and our community of design leaders and executives.
Plays
Designed to bring leadership out of thinking and into action, these custom, step-by-step activities are perfect for bringing meaningful change to life.
Community
Share your challenges, ask for feedback, and find peers you can lean on, and learn with others in a space you can feel safe in.
Workshop Templates
Bring your biggest lessons back to work with you with our custom Figma, Mural, Miro, Google Sheets, Docs, and PDF templates and tools.
Live Events
Join relevant and timely discussions with those who share your responsibilities and pressures and others who have done it before.
Resource Library
Gain full access to no-BS lessons, proven frameworks, and tactical toolkits, all delivered by leaders who've been in your shoes and have your back.
Who is CDO School for?
CDO School is ideal for in-house design leaders
1. Senior, Lead, and Principal practioners in Product Design, Service Design, UX Design, and Growth Design.
2. Managers, Director, and Executives who lead teams and disciplines.
3. Product, UX, and Service Designers, as well as Researchers, DesignOps, DPMs, or any other fancy title you have.
What people are saying
As featured in
An emerging platform to recapture the maverick, creative spirit of design and chart a new path forward for design leadership.
"I’ve been hearing really good things about CDO School. Their mission is to elevate business knowledge now, so that we can more effectively articulate what [design’s] value is and strengthen our design organizations."
How it works
CDO School is a system to plan, and pivot, where and how design can be most effective inside your company.
- Practical lessons that fit your schedule
- Skills you can apply now
- A playbook to account for the constant changes inside your company
1
Join CDO School
For just $300/year, you get access to all our on-demand courses, member-exclusive webinars, and our community of design leaders and executives.
2
Take a Course
Our courses give you the fundamental skills you’ll need to represent the design as part of a larger ecosystem and help you build your influence beyond design itself.
3
Grow Your Career
With a plan, you’ll be amazed at how your confidence skyrockets, those overwhelming feelings subside, and how design’s relevance to business expands.
What you get
- 30+ Actionable Plays
- 13+ On-Demand Courses
- Interactive Community of Design Leaders & Executives
- Member-Exclusive Live Events
- 150+ Tools & Templates
- The 130-page CDO School Design Org Strategy digital workbook
Pricing
Basic 🪴
Unlock in-depth learnings.
$300
/year
- Access to all courses ($2400 value)
- Access to all workshops ($297 value)
- Access to past event recordings
- 130-page CDO School Workbook
- 150+ Tools & Templates
- 30+ Actionable Plays Members-only
- Members-only community forum
- Weekly Monday Campfire Calls with Ryan
- Expert and member-led events
- 10% Discount on Live Courses & Workshops
Premium 🌳
Basic + Personalized guidance.
$500
/year
- Access to all courses ($2400 value)
- Access to all workshops ($297 value)
- Access to past event recordings
- 130-page CDO School Workbook
- 150+ Tools & Templates
- 30+ Actionable Plays Members-only
- Members-only community forum
- Weekly Monday Campfire Calls with Ryan
- Expert and member-led events
- 20% Discount on Live Courses & Workshops
- Quarterly, 60-minute 1:1 coaching calls with Ryan ($1200 value)
Join 6,000+ Design Leaders
Subscribe to the CDO School newsletter for real-life experiments, expert interviews, and evidence-backed advice every week.
