Key details
Time
- 5pm – 6pm
Location
- Online
Price
- Free
Who can attend
- Everyone
Type
- Webinar
Design until recently has been a global business. With the new geopolitics – not to mention questions of sustainability – will design businesses become more local, national and regional? If so, what are the upsides and downsides of this shift? This session brings together two major figures in the global design business, who have both worked globally – but what does the future hold?
An unmissable conversation moderated by Philip Dodd, Chairman of Made in China (UK) Ltd. with Gina Diez Barroso, pioneering Mexican entrepreneur and philanthropist, and Jack Godfrey-Wood, founder and managing partner of Heirloom.
Speakers
Gina Diez Barroso
Gina Diez Barroso is a pioneering Mexican entrepreneur and philanthropist whose career bridges architecture, design, and education. She is the founder of Grupo Diarq, a leading real estate development firm known for its fully integrated, end-to-end model across Mexico and the US, which has become a benchmark in architectural and design excellence.
She also founded Diez Company, a global leader in high-end lighting solutions for residential, commercial, and hospitality projects, collaborating with over 100 designers from Latin America, the US, Europe, and Asia. In education, Gina founded CENTRO, Mexico’s first university focused on design, media, architecture, and technology.
Her latest venture, Dalia, is a global learning ecosystem built to address one of the most significant barriers to gender equity: the internal challenges that hold women back professionally. Dalia is a strategic business model powered by AI, behavioural data and community engagement. Its goal: impact 25 million women worldwide.
In 2024, she was named Mexico’s Most Powerful Woman by Forbes, and in 2023, she received EY Entrepreneur of the Year for Mexico.
Jack Godfrey-Wood
Jack Godfrey-Wood is founder and managing partner of Heirloom, a collective of celebrated designers who have worked extensively with global brands. It has offices in London, San Francisco, Tokyo and Los Angeles and works across the physical and digital domains in the fields of consumer technology, medical devices, workplace furniture and digital features.
Jack’s own work has received over 60 international awards and features in the permanent collections of the V&A and British Museum in London and the UNHQ in New York. He has worked and lived in the UK, India, China, Taiwan, Tanzania and US.
Philip Dodd
Philip Dodd is an award-winning BBC broadcaster and chairman of the creative industries company Made in China. He is also one of the co-founders of the RCA Building a Globally Successful Creative Business.
Made in China (UK) Ltd is an award-winning creative business agency, founded in 2004. It works in the field of culture and education between China and Europe. It has been first in the class – staging the first museum tour of a major Western artist across five museums in China; working with a major Chinese developer to bring the V&A Museum to China and founding the Global Private Museum Summit, which brought together private museums from all over the world. It has developed and run professional experience courses for the advertising giant Ogilvy as well as with the V&A.
In the series
Free online talks led by RCA academic faculty featuring notable guest speakers with industry specialism and leading professional practitioners in their field.
