Josh Silverman

Josh Silverman helps people discover their purpose, and connects them with opportunities.

As Director of Career Development, he supports students and alumni on their career journeys, and builds bridges between learning, industry, and community. For nearly thirty years he has worked at the intersection of entrepreneurship, design education, and designers. He chaired the Master of Interaction Design (MDes) program at California College of the Arts, where he led the program through the pandemic and into its 2.0 by diversifying faculty perspectives, introducing new curriculum, and building ongoing partnerships with Google, CNN, and UNICEF.

Josh is also the founder of PeopleWork Partners, a design recruiting and leadership coaching practice that brings a humane lens to hiring, and has placed emerging leaders at Target, Cisco, Netflix, OpenAI, and several upcoming startups. Previously, he was the first DesignOps hire inside Twitter’s Product Design team, and earlier he founded Schwadesign, a lean, holacratic design business where he curated and led diverse project teams for nearly 20 years. He has led multiple chapters of AIGA; has taught at CCA, RISD, MassArt, and online at Maven; and has guest critiqued and held workshops around the globe.

On the daily, he is driven by great pairings, trusting relationships, and very long bike rides.