catherine smith (she/her)
design thinking facilitator

01. introduction

Catherine Smith is a design thinking and facilitation guru whose ability to connect dots, visualize information, design products, lead workshops, draw inspiration from other fields, and harness collective creativity brought her to Sustain Tomorrow. Since 2016, she has been an adjunct lecturer for Stanford’s senior-level Product Design Needfinding class, and has taught at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Cape Town. She also has worked as a consultant for Jump Associates where she focused on strategy, design thinking facilitation, and visual recording. 

02. experience

Catherine’s design thinking experience has led her to support the National Institutes of Health, TATA, Mars, Inc., Lowe’s Home Improvement, Hills Pet Food, Target, IKEA, SAP, Audi, WET Design, Stanford, and the Hasso Plattner Institute. She believes design thinking can be a powerful tool to make an impact in the world- especially in the corporate space. Her hope is to harness the power of design thinking to uncover profitable alternatives to processes that emit carbon dioxide. 

03. education

• Stanford University, BA Product Design

• Stanford University, MS Mechanical Engineering

04. what sustains catherine

In her free time, Catherine is sustained by woodworking. She loves finding old wood and furniture and dismantling it, refinishing or repainting it, and upcycling it into beautiful new pieces and objects.

05. favorite tree

Banyan trees are Catherine’s favorite tree. They are strangely beautiful, with aerial roots that drop down and re-enter the ground from their high branches to build a vast, interconnected network. She loves the unique evolution of this tree that looks majestic, with its altogether drastically different approach to growing and building.