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Ellen McGirt

Ellen McGirt is an author, podcaster, speaker, community builder, and award-winning business journalist. She is the editor-in-chief of Design Observer, a media company that has maintained the same clear vision for more than two decades: to expand the definition of design in service of a better world. Ellen established the inclusive leadership beat at Fortune in 2016 with raceAhead, an award-winning newsletter on race, culture, and business. The Fortune, Time, Money, and Fast Company alumna has published over twenty magazine cover stories throughout her twenty-year career, exploring the people and ideas changing business for good. Ask her about fly fishing if you get the chance.

More from this author

Debbie Millman Design Matters Headshot

Design of Business | Business of Design

Ellen McGirt|Audio

Love Letter to a Garden and 20 years of Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Business

Ellen McGirt|Audio

Redesigning the Spice Trade: Talking Turmeric and Tariffs with Diaspora Co.’s Sana Javeri Kadri

Design of Business | Business of Design

Ellen McGirt|Audio

Making Space: Jon M. Chu on Designing Your Own Path

Business

Ellen McGirt|Audio

The New Era of Design Leadership with Tony Bynum

Business

Ellen McGirt|Audio

A Mastercard for Pigs? How Digital Infrastructure is Transforming Farming and Fighting Poverty

Civic Life

Ellen McGirt|Audio

DB|BD Season 12 Premiere: Designing for the Unknown – The Future of Cities is Climate Adaptive with Michael Eliason
In a mostly grayscale picture, a dark cloaked figure looms above a bright orange campfire.

The Observatory

Ellen McGirt|Books

Parable of the Redesigner

Equity Observer

Ellen McGirt|Essays

The Design Observer annual gift guide!

Equity Observer

Ellen McGirt|Essays

Gratitude? HARD PASS
Two Black men in face masks are in the foreground of a BLM protest. A visible sign among protesters behind them reads: "Black Lives Matter"

Equity Observer

Ellen McGirt|Democracy

New kids on the bloc?

Equity Observer

Ellen McGirt|Essays

I’m looking for a dad in finance
An image of hurricane aftermath, including mud-laden streets, fallen trees, and a car nose-down, halfway submerged in muddy water

Equity Observer

Ellen McGirt|Design and Climate Change

What will we do when all the levees break?