Karel Vredenburg — Co-Founder

Karel has had a long career as a design executive, most recently as Global Vice President at IBM. He serves as Industry Professor in the McMaster University’s DeGroote Schools of Business and Medicine, hosts the Life Habits Podcast, serves on the BITE and PRAXXI Advisory Boards, and helps individuals with his career coaching practice. He recently co-founded the global nonprofit Habits for a Better World with filmmaker Carly Williams and serves as its president, leading 400+ volunteers. The initiative addresses global challenges—such as the health of the planet and ourselves—through research-driven, design-inspired behavior change via social media reels, a documentary, in-person activations, and GenAI-powered tools and other supports. Karel previously co-founded and led other large global projects such as the COVID-19 Design Challenge with the World Design Organization and Design for America and the Future of Design Education Initiative alongside design visionary Don Norman. At IBM, he developed and introduced User-Centered Design across the company in the middle 1990s, led the company’s designers and researchers, developed a worldwide education program, a design and researcher toolkit, and published the book “User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach”. With the reboot of the design program in 2013, Karel introduced and taught IBM's Enterprise Design Thinking to each of the business units of the company globally—software, consulting, sales, and infrastructure—and to hundreds of other companies, startup incubators, and universities. He founded the Design Executive Team of business unit top managerial design executives and led the Design Leadership Board of the technical and managerial design executives responsible for the appointment of Design Principals and Distinguished Designers. Karel was responsible for the design profession, designer skill development, and design culture for the 3,000 designers in the company and for external engagement, academic programs, and the social media presence externally. He did undergraduate, masters, and doctoral studies at the University of Toronto initially in cognitive science and clinical psychology which later led to research, specialization, and his life-long passion for, practice in, and leadership of design and research. Karel blogs at karelvredenburg.com and his social media coordinates include @karelvredenburg on Instagram and TikTok as well as naturally right here on LinkedIn.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a design executive with a strong focus on UX research and education in the nonprofit and technology sectors.

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Experience: 36 yrs 6 mos

Career Highlights

Led global UX research at IBM.
Co-founded nonprofit addressing global challenges.
Pioneered User-Centered Design at IBM.

Work Experience

Habits for a Better World

Co-founder & President (1 yr 10 mos)

IBM

IBM Global Vice President, UX Research (2 yrs 1 mo)

Director, IBM Global Design Leadership, Culture, External Engagement, and Academic Programs (1 yr 2 mos)

Director, IBM Global Design Leadership & Academic Programs (2 yrs)

Director, Global Academic Programs, Design (3 yrs 4 mos)

Head, IBM Studios Canada (10 yrs 5 mos)

Director, IBM Design (30 yrs 8 mos)

DeGroote School of Business - McMaster University

Industry Professor (11 yrs 3 mos)

Life Habits Podcast

Founder & Host (18 yrs 2 mos)

KV Career Coaching

Professional Career Coach (35 yrs 7 mos)

Self-employed

Design & Applied Research Consulting (1 yr 6 mos)

University of Toronto

Design Researcher & Lecturer (2 yrs 6 mos)

Education

PhD Program (ABDD) at University of Toronto

Karel Vredenburg

Co-Founder

Toronto, Ontario, Canada36 yrs 6 mos experience

Highly Stable

Key Highlights

Led global UX research at IBM.
Co-founded nonprofit addressing global challenges.
Pioneered User-Centered Design at IBM.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a design executive with a strong focus on UX research and education in the nonprofit and technology sectors.

Contact

Skills

Other Skills

User-centered DesignUser ExperienceUser Interface DesignHuman Computer InteractionUsability TestingInformation ArchitectureUser Experience DesignInteraction DesignHeuristic EvaluationUser ResearchUser InterfaceUsability EngineeringAgile MethodologiesUsabilityMobile Applications

About

Experience

36 yrs 6 mos

Total Experience

12 yrs 8 mos

Average Tenure

Current Experience

Habits for a better world

Co-founder & President

Jun 2024 – Present · 1 yr 10 mos · Remote

Karel founded the Habits for a Better World nonprofit along with Carly Williams to address global challenges like climate change, animal and human suffering, food insecurity, human illness, and biodiversity loss. Karel and Carly combine their skills and expertise to take a research-based approach (using UX research methods) to meet people where they are and determine the reasons why change isn’t happening rapidly enough at both an individual and systems level, a design-based approach (using UX design methods) to ideate ways to address the inhibitors we discover, and then a film-based approach to get those ideas out in the world through a documentary and social media outreach (using compelling storytelling and filmmaking). The project has more than 300 volunteer researchers, designers, and filmmakers.

Ibm

6 roles

IBM Global Vice President, UX Research

Promoted

May 2022 – Jun 2024 · 2 yrs 1 mo

Karel had responsibility for UX research globally and the client insights it provides to product, services, and executive teams. He led the company’s researchers and the research practices those practitioners use.

Director, IBM Global Design Leadership, Culture, External Engagement, and Academic Programs

Mar 2021 – May 2022 · 1 yr 2 mos

Director, IBM Global Design Leadership & Academic Programs

May 2020 – May 2022 · 2 yrs

Director, Global Academic Programs, Design

Jan 2019 – May 2022 · 3 yrs 4 mos

Karel now serves as the director of IBM's Global Academic Programs for Design after having helped develop and teach several innovative educational programs and courses at universities over the past few years in addition to his primary job of transforming business units of IBM and IBM's clients globally. He collaborates with top design schools and universities, aided by his network of IBM design leaders and executives, to share IBM's Enterprise Design Thinking bespoke education powered design transformation, to help transform current curricula at schools, and to work with administrators and faculty on initiatives of mutual interest.

Head, IBM Studios Canada

Jan 2014 – Jun 2024 · 10 yrs 5 mos

In addition to Karel's global design role, he also served as the head of IBM Studios Canada with seven locations across the country.

Director, IBM Design

Apr 1988 – Dec 2018 · 30 yrs 8 mos

Karel currently has responsibility for IBM Design worldwide client programs. He joined IBM in 1988, introduced User-Centered Design to the company in 1993 and was given company-wide responsibility for design in 1995. He led the creation of a design workbench of tools in 1997, a new design system in 2011, the design of IBM Watson Solutions in 2012, and he was a founding member of the new IBM Design companywide organization in 2013. He has presented keynotes, conducted workshops on design with clients as well as at conferences worldwide and written over 60 conference and journal publications. He has also published a book entitled "User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach", contributed chapters to other edited books and served as special issue editor for the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction special issue entitled "Designing the Total User Experience at IBM" and the Ease of Use issue of the IBM Systems Journal. Karel is based in Toronto, Canada.

Degroote school of business - mcmaster university

Industry Professor

Jan 2015 – Present · 11 yrs 3 mos · Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Karel helped design curricula for and teaches in several programs in the DeGroote Schools of Business and Medicine. Karel teaches Corporate Innovation by Design in the Executive MBA program in Digital Transformation, Innovative and Creative Problem Solving in the Director's College, and Leveraging Design Thinking in the Health Leadership Academy. He previously also taught the Emerging Health Leaders program and the pan-university Innovation by Design course for undergraduate and graduate students from all faculties.

Life habits podcast

Founder & Host

Feb 2008 – Present · 18 yrs 2 mos · Remote

Karel founded the Life Habits Podcast after years of having been a mentor to hundreds of people in one-on-one sessions. It now has in excess of 150 episodes and covers a wide range of topics including career development, interpersonal effectiveness, health, fitness, and more. Earlier this year, he expanded the show to included three permanent co-hosts—Mandy Kloppers, MJ Shaar, and Suzanne Joy Clark—and introduced a new video version on YouTube. You can find out more about the show and links to where it’s available at lifehabitspodcast.com.

Kv career coaching

Professional Career Coach

Sep 1990 – Present · 35 yrs 7 mos · Remote

I provide professional one-on-one career coaching to professionals throughout the full range of life and career stages leveraging my PhD level training in cognitive science, clinical psychology, and human-computer interaction as well as my rich career as a design executive, industry professor, keynote speaker, board director, podcast host, and co-founder.

Self-employed

Design & Applied Research Consulting

Sep 1986 – Mar 1988 · 1 yr 6 mos

Karel designed and developed applications that simplified and guided the user through the selection of appropriate research and analysis methods and the optimal approach to data visualization. He also consulted on the design of software, the design of applied research studies, the statistical analysis of data, and the communication of research results.

University of toronto

Design Researcher & Lecturer

Sep 1985 – Mar 1988 · 2 yrs 6 mos

Karel carried out a program of design research investigating positive and negative reactions to computer software user interface designs, age and gender differences, and optimal user interface design elements and characteristics as measured by self-report as well as physiological indicators including heart rate and galvanic skin response. He also developed university courses and taught undergraduate classes on design methods, psychology, cognitive science, applied research methods, and statistics.