Jo Harrington | Design Lead and System Shift Associate Jo is an experienced system leadership and design specialist working across public and social systems internationally. His working life began in social work in the UK supporting children and young people in care and in the criminal justice system. The challenges and possibilities for better supporting some of our most vulnerable people with love and care has been at the heart of Jo’s quest and commitment to transforming social and public systems.
Jo has delivered wide ranging programmes in partnership with people in the UK, Europe and more widely internationally. He has worked with a wide number of public design and innovation organisations in senior leadership roles, including as head of design & partner at Innovation Unit UK and leading public sector work at Engine Service Design. His strategic design work has included work leading the development of Living Well UK, one of the UK largest mental health system innovation programmes, work in Brazil on radical education reform, in Australia running a country-wide innovation programme with a $billion early years education charity and in the US supporting a pioneering city-wide innovation programme in New York.
Jo is an experience systems leadership and design lecturer and coach, including as programme lead for the UK top ranked degree Design at Goldsmiths College, University of London and as an Enabler with the UK's Leadership Centre, developing leadership programmes for senior public and social system leaders internationally, including in partnership with Harvard and MiT.
Jo is based in Göteborg in Sweden and is working across the Nordic countries in strategic design roles. This includes his work with System Shift on growing new forms of system leadership internationally, establishing new arenas for collaborative policy development on complex societal challenges across the Nordics with Samhällsnytta and ExperioLab, and hosting new kinds of creative and collaborative practices of renewal in communities and social organisations in Sweden with Förnyelselabbet.