Designing a path to leadership
When organizational restructuring expanded Jason Ackley’s marketing team, Yale’s Business Perspectives for Creative Leaders prepared him for broader business responsibilities.
What motivated you to attend the program?
Morningstar was going through an organizational restructuring which resulted in a number of disparate product marketing teams to be unified as one central team. My small corporate marketing squad was expanded to bring all of our marketing team members under one umbrella. Given this shift, and anticipating that my purview and set of responsibilities would extend further into the business, I thought the program would help in preparing me for my new remit.
When you attended the program, where were you in your career?
It was a moment where I was asked to step into an elevated role to manage the design function within our new central marketing and brand function. I was going from being a Design Manager, guiding a small group of 4 focused on specific brand and corporate work, to a Design Director, overseeing a broader team of more than 12 designers covering all of Morningstar's various businesses.
Since your time in the program, what professional accomplishments bring you the greatest pride?
Since attending the program my career at Morningstar has continued to evolve and shift into new realms that have been really gratifying. Immediately following the program, I felt I gained a solid understanding across a range of business concepts that had applicability in my new role of leading a larger team and in engaging with different business partners day to day. Through the success of this elevated role, I had the courage to go after yet another more ambitious opportunity, ultimately winning the role of Head of Design for global marketing and brand within the firm. From there I expanded further into marketing leadership, and now head up design for a specific business in Morningstar focused on the topic of sustainability. I definitely feel like this program equipped me with useful concepts that helped me speak the language of business through a lens of creative leadership and enabled me to do the things required to empower my team to execute great work.
Being a talented designer can only take you so far. When dealing with clients or internal stakeholders, being able to speak the language of business is currency that unlocks the freedom to do innovative work.
What are some key program learnings that you have implemented in your work?
Many of the concepts stuck with me and shifted my approach to creative and operational problem-solving. Starting with the mind-mapping exercises we did early on in the program, which provided a sort of logic and structure to peeling back the layers of a business problem, bringing focus to the ways you can tackle those larger, more perplexing challenges that come up in large organizations. I also latched on to many of the negotiation tactics shared, specifically the "split the pie" approach from Barry Nalebuff which especially helps when dealing with internal stakeholders, where we ultimately are looking to achieve a greater collective outcome through our partnerships. I also felt our mental muscles were flexed in the realm of operational logic, which has been invaluable to me developing systems and models for efficiently scaling creative execution and output.
How would you describe the program and its value to someone considering it?
Being a talented designer can only take you so far. When dealing with clients or internal stakeholders (if you work in-house), being able to speak the language of business is currency that unlocks the freedom to do innovative work. This program provided a solid base of business concepts and tools that elevated my confidence to contribute to the strategic conversation, which ultimately provides agency to shape and execute beautiful solutions, while contributing to the success of the business.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your program experience or what you've achieved since your program?
I valued greatly the engagement I had with the other design leaders in the program. Seeing perspectives from different industries and vantage points was extremely valuable. And I gained friendships and connections that continue to this day.
