Gerry Scullion

Gerry Scullion is one of the most influential voices in human-centered design today. As founder of The Human Centered Design Network, he built the world's number-one Human Centered Design podcast — downloaded over 1.1 million times and heard in more than 140 countries — and transformed it into a thriving global community of designers, changemakers, and leaders committed to putting people first. His forthcoming book, This is Human Centered Design, published by BIS Publishers, distils over two decades of frontline practice into a definitive guide for anyone serious about designing services and experiences that truly work for people. He also contributed to the landmark This is Service Design Doing (O'Reilly, 2018), authoring chapters on effective prototyping and embedding service design teams within organisations, alongside 200 of the world's leading service designers. He is the creator of the Service Design for Executives course on Pluralsight, bringing design leadership thinking to a corporate audience. Through his consultancy Humana Design (trading as This is HCD), Gerry designs and delivers transformative training programmes for organisations across the globe — from government agencies undertaking large-scale digital transformation to enterprises reshaping how they serve their customers. His clients include the Digital Government Authority of Saudi Arabia, Elexon (UK electricity industry), Accenture, EY, PwC, Dublin City Council, NSW Government, Victoria State Government, Trust Housing Scotland, and MYOB, among many others. Gerry is deeply committed to social impact and public service. He has partnered with the Irish Cancer Society on pro bono service design work, helping reshape how the organisation supports people through some of life's most difficult journeys. His work with local and national government — from Dublin City Council to the NSW Department of Justice and NSW Corrective Services in Australia — reflects a belief that design has the power to make public services more humane, more accessible, and more effective for the people who need them most. With over 22 years of professional design experience spanning finance, healthcare, media, public services, fintech, and social media, Gerry has worked at the intersection of strategy and craft for his entire career. Since 2018, he has focused on training and coaching organisations worldwide, partnering with collaborators including Marc Stickdorn on strategic service design programmes and Rachael Dietkus on pioneering trauma-informed design practices. Gerry is a regular speaker at international design conferences, where he challenges organisations to become genuinely human-centered in how they design and deliver services. He has held the role of Councillor for Ireland with the Service Design Network and served as NSW Convenor for the Royal Society of Arts. He lives near the sea in Clontarf, Dublin, with his wife, two young children, and one very lucky dog. In his spare time, he daydreams, perfects his barista skills, flies drones, grows vegetables, and plays ukulele and guitar — often not all at once.