Tom Hardy, Design management professor, SCAD

Design management professor Tom Hardy exemplifies the caliber of exemplary SCAD faculty. Before coming to SCAD in 2011, Hardy spent 22 years at IBM as an award-winning industrial designer, design manager and Corporate IBM Design Program Director.

“SCAD faculty are a combination of career academics mixed with industry professionals who have international experience across multiple major organisations,” Hardy says. “Our chair of design management, John Denham, worked at Proctor & Gamble and Conagra Brands. Professor Christine Fish designed for Fossil Watches and lived in Berlin. Industrial design professor Hari Nair worked with Whirlpool Corporation for over ten years, including as VP Whirlpool India and Director, Global Consumer Design Asia. SCAD faculty are sensitive to the international student experience and cultivate an international mindset in the classroom.”

In 2020, the prestigious Red Dot Design Rankings placed SCAD as the No. 1 University in the U.S. for the fourth consecutive year. Essential career preparation has resulted in a superior alumni employment rate. In a recent study, 99% of SCAD graduates were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 10 months of graduation. SCAD provides students and alumni with ongoing career support through personal coaching, alumni programs, the SCADamp professional presentation studio and more.

Hardy further states, “Our students have a tremendous track record of getting great jobs with top drawer companies. The big design management consultancies, like McKinsey, Bain, and Ernst & Young, all understand that thinking like a designer to solve problems adds value to their business strategy. Companies such as IBM and Google employ our students upon graduation in the UX field, in research and strategy. We have a significant group of SCAD alumni working across key brands. Some of them come back to SCAD as design alumni mentors.”