Samsung Design Ambassadors

With over 1,500 designers, Samsung is the leading employer of designers globally. Under Executive Vice President Dong Hoon Chang, who heads its Corporate Design Center, it has demonstrated its commitment to design as a strategic tool for innovation in products and services.

The RCA worked in close partnership with Samsung to deliver a holistic education package for its most talented staff. A select number of Samsung employees undertook the full two-year Master’s Programme in London. They were joined for one term by colleagues who benefited from an accelerated and immersive programme that equipped them to return to Samsung as Design Ambassadors, helping to create a grassroots culture of design thinking and innovation. 

As part of this strong partnership, Dr Nick de Leon and a team from the Service Design Programme delivered a week-long programme on ‘Design and Innovation of Services and Service Systems’ in Seoul, South Korea. Aimed at Samsung professional designers and technical specialists, the programme helped Samsung to develop their ‘Service Design’ skill base by harnessing existing technical or design specialisms (traditionally geared towards products) and reapplying these to the design of entire service systems.