Newell Brands recently appointed Brian Rice as vice president, global head of design.
Rice previously served as senior vice president and global chief brand and design officer at 3M. He has also held senior design leadership roles at Georgia-Pacific, Procter & Gamble, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and The Coca-Cola Company.
Based at Newell’s Design Center in Atlanta, Rice is responsible for advancing design as an integrated enterprise capability across the company’s portfolio of iconic brands, including such housewares brands as Rubbermaid, Calphalon, Oster, Mr. Coffee, Crock-Pot and FoodSaver and Oster, as well as other consumer brands such as Sharpie, Ball, Coleman, Graco and Yankee Candle.
He is charged with modernizing the Newell Design Center into a leading-edge hub for industrial design, brand design, digital visualization, prototyping and AI-enabled innovation, according to Newell.
“Design already plays an important role across many of our brands, but the real opportunity is to elevate it as an integrated enterprise capability,” Rice said. “What that means in practice is bringing design physically closer to strategy, innovation and decision-making across the business.”
On the growing role of artificial intelligence in design, Rice said, “AI is becoming an incredible amplifier for design and innovation. It helps us explore more ideas, faster, and gives teams better insights earlier in the process. It’s an accelerant for all of us
“But the key thing to remember is that AI doesn’t replace creativity… it amplifies it,” he continued. “The real value comes when talented designers combine human insight, brand understanding and empathy with powerful new tools.”
