Mickey McManus

Senior Advisor & Leadership Coach, BCG; Co-Author, Trillions; Research Fellow Emeritus, Autodesk Mickey McManus is a serial entrepreneur, Senior Advisor/executive coach at BCG and a research fellow emeritus at Autodesk’s Office of the CTO. He is a pioneer in design futures, complex system thinking, augmented collective intelligence (ACI), nurturing antidisciplinary teams/cultures/ecosystems, design science, and ARPA-style “department of strategic surprise” development. Mickey holds 12 patents in the area of connected products, environments, vehicles and services and co-authored the Carnegie Science Award winning book, Trillions – Thriving in the Information Ecology. In Trillions he and his co-authors posit that in a deeply interconnected world unbounded malignant complexity will be one of the most significant challenges. Taming complexity will be a superpower for individuals and organizations. His design innovation & digital transformation lab/agency, MAYA, was sold to BCG six+ years ago and became a foundational part of their global design and build offering called BCG X. The educational institute he funded and co-founded, LUMA Institute has taught 100,000+ people globally about the power of design. It was acquired by Mural to become their operating system for co-creating with people and putting people first using design methods. The generative AI-based learning engine work he helped build at Autodesk is now being rolled out into some of their core products to team humans and algorithms and create personal dynamically assessed life-long journey pathways towards better careers in design, engineering, architecture/construction, and media/entertainment. He and his team at MAYA have won multiple Consumer Electronics Association Award, shipped the first “Matter” based consumer IoT offering and helped shape the development and early learnings for that standard that is now used by Apple, Amazon, IKEA, and many other IoT partners.

Senior Advisor & Leadership Coach, BCG; Co-Author, Trillions; Research Fellow Emeritus, Autodesk

Mickey McManus is a serial entrepreneur, Senior Advisor/executive coach at BCG and a research fellow emeritus at Autodesk’s Office of the CTO. He is a pioneer in design futures, complex system thinking, augmented collective intelligence (ACI), nurturing antidisciplinary teams/cultures/ecosystems, design science, and ARPA-style “department of strategic surprise” development. Mickey holds 12 patents in the area of connected products, environments, vehicles and services and co-authored the Carnegie Science Award winning book, Trillions - Thriving in the Information Ecology. In Trillions he and his co-authors posit that in a deeply interconnected world unbounded malignant complexity will be one of the most significant challenges. Taming complexity will be a superpower for individuals and organizations.

His design innovation & digital transformation lab/agency, MAYA, was sold to BCG six+ years ago and became a foundational part of their global design and build offering called BCG X. The educational institute he funded and co-founded, LUMA Institute has taught 100,000+ people globally about the power of design. It was acquired by Mural to become their operating system for co-creating with people and putting people first using design methods. The generative AI-based learning engine work he helped build at Autodesk is now being rolled out into some of their core products to team humans and algorithms and create personal dynamically assessed life-long journey pathways towards better careers in design, engineering, architecture/construction, and media/entertainment. He and his team at MAYA have won multiple Consumer Electronics Association Award, shipped the first “Matter” based consumer IoT offering and helped shape the development and early learnings for that standard that is now used by Apple, Amazon, IKEA, and many other IoT partners.

Activities for Mickey

Speaker | Design Entrepreneurship Deep Dive | 2023

The Water’s Fine! Trust Me: A Candid Discussion on Navigating Design Entrepreneurialism

This panel discussion assembles creative professionals who started their careers graduating from Industrial Design programs and matured in design entrepreneurial pathways. The panelists are experts in successful agency operations, bringing personal projects to reality, and securing funding for big ideas. Our panelists will shed light on key situations that allowed them to submerge themselves into entrepreneurialism’s deep waters, stories of their journeys, and pointed takeaways for all of us who are contemplating going it on our own. When our talk is completed, you will have a chance to ask questions that will assist you in deciding whether to jump…or stay put.