In this episode of FigBrew, Andrew Hogan speaks with Daniel Wert, CEO of Wert & Co., about their new study on hiring in design — and what it reveals about the current moment in the market.

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In the AI era, companies need designers more than ever. As AI has introduced—and demanded—new skills, workflows, and norms, many designers are wondering what these changes mean for landing their next role.

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What defines the past, present, and future of design? Three decades in, we’re still learning from the people shaping what’s next. To celebrate our 30th year, we partnered with Design Better for a live conversation on how design has evolved—and where it’s headed.

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In 1995, the world was a different place.

Google didn’t exist. Amazon was still a bookstore. Our calls were made on landlines, our files lived on floppy disks. Design lived mostly on the edges: housed in studios, consulted on late, and rarely invited to the executive table.

Our office held a wall of mailed resumes, a room of physical portfolios, and stacks of 4×6 notecards—each one neatly labeled and bound with rubber bands—organizing the work that passed through our hands.

_____________

Wert&Co. started quietly, with a few guiding beliefs:

That design was integral to business success
(and would move from the margins to the center).

That converging disciplines would find their place.

That leadership would require more than talent
—it would require vision, timing, care.

And that recruiting, when done right,
wasn’t transactional, but transformational.

_____________

We may not have predicted everything. But we sensed what was coming.

Over the next three decades, we listened as design evolved: from service to strategy, from department to discipline. We watched our design community transform companies from the inside out—shaping not only products and services, but the ways people live, work, and connect.

We’ve navigated cycles: dot-com booms and busts, global market resets, the rise of mobile, the birth of social, and now the age of AI. We’ve seen the conversation shift from “Do we need design?” to “How can we lead with it?”

We built this company slowly and deliberately. We stayed small so we could go deep. We’ve spent years building relationships because what matters most are people. We’ve helped teams find their first design leader—and then their twentieth. We’ve tracked the careers of people we met as interns and supported them as they became VPs, investors, board members and founders.

_____________

Today, our conversations are as much about values and purpose as they are about roles and requirements. About how we work, how we lead, how we build trust, and what it means to create with purpose in a world that’s moving fast.

Looking forward, we’ll keep asking better questions.
We’ll keep broadening what design leadership can mean and how far it can reach.
We’ll keep communicating with care, building with intention, and showing up with the kind of honesty that earns trust over time.

We’ll continue doing the work we’ve always done, while holding space for what comes next.

Because thirty years in, we know this much:
Design never stops moving.
Neither do we.

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Our Design community has been the backdrop to much of my life — growing up, your portfolios covered our coffee table, your business cards spun on our rolodex-filled shelves, and to this day, your stories are the soundtrack to every dinner conversation. Connecting with all of you since joining Wert&Co., has felt like a reunion — a chance to finally meet all the people whose names I’ve heard so often over the years.

Although we at Wert&Co. think of our Design community as one giant family, I only have one set of parents. I am honored to ensure the institution Jeff & Judy built (alongside all of you) continues to evolve and thrive. My purpose in joining Wert&Co. is not to replace my parents but to empower them. Like any team, and family, we are greater than the sum of our parts, and we are all here to stay.

Looking forward, we wanted to share a few of our thoughts about the future:

Although Wert&Co’s reputation is rightfully synonymous with leadership recruiting and executive search, our definition of a “leader” is broader than most — inclusive of management roles but certainly not mutually exclusive to them. Whether you are a Founding Designer, Principal, Director, CDO, Investor, or Board Member — we are here to support you throughout your career and no matter what kind of leader you aspire to be.

When recruiting is done right, its spirit bends towards coaching. Our philosophy around recruiting remains unchanged — we aim to be a friend and trusted thought partner throughout your journey, both professionally and personally.

Scale will never be a goal for Wert&Co. On the contrary, our compass is set toward quality — of opportunity, of person, of life, and in every conversation. Too many recruiting organizations are handcuffed by a culture of quotas and a need for constant “growth.” We will never prioritize quantity over quality simply because we don’t have to.

Design is a beautifully diverse and inclusive discipline. Whether you are designing products, brands, homes, experiences, business plans, systems, teams, or people’s career — there are many ways to be a Designer.

This next generation of companies will invest in Design from the jump. If the past 28 years of Wert&Co. have been about uplifting Design to the top of every business, the next few decades will also be about ensuring Design has a meaningful role at every new beginning.

Recruiting and search are integral parts of this 0–1 effort, but they are not the only tools on our belt. Although it’s too soon to publicize all of our plans, we are excited to diversify our suite of services to better serve our fellow designers & entrepreneurs.

Stay tuned!

— DW

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Our business is the business of change: changing aspirations, changing teams, and ever-changing stories.

Wert&Co. has played an integral role in helping designers and the organizations they’ve been a part of navigate immense change for almost thirty years. Our earned wisdom is not just identifying what comes next but seeing who it is that can push, pull, mold, lift, or carve out that “next” from the current “now.”

As we design our own future, Wert&Co. welcomes Daniel Wert to the role of Chief Executive Officer. Working alongside co-founders Judy Wert and Jeff Wert and the Wert&Co. team, he will be complimenting their decades of experience with his own expertise and accomplishments.

Daniel joined Wert&Co. in 2021, modernizing our executive search practice and diversifying our business thanks to his in-house operational experience building successful products and high-functioning teams at multiple growth-stage startups. Most recently, as the first employee and Head of People at Anchorage Digital, he helped build a multi-billion dollar business and globally diverse team across every discipline.

With Daniel’s experience and vision, Wert&Co. will continue to innovate and add new services and capabilities in the coming months and years, resolute in our commitment to design and to people.

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