A career, unfrozen

Ron Sinha used the MMM Program to bridge the gap between data and design. After putting those lessons to work at Nike and Disney, he’s taking on a new challenge.
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Kellogg
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a man wearing sunglasses and a green jacket
For Ron Sinha, product success depends on collaboration and a shared sense of purpose.

In the time just before millions of kids would start repeatedly belting out “Let It Go,” Ron Sinha ‘15 MBA, MS was trying to figure out if “Frozen” would be a hit. As a business analyst at Disney, Sinha’s job was to develop financial forecasts for upcoming movies, everything from the animated now-classic about the ice princess to live-action offerings such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.”

But a sharp divide between the data of finance and the designs of the animators creating the films left Sinha hamstrung. “I wanted to get closer to the design side, to what it actually means to create a Pixar animation separate from my financial projection,” he said. “I wanted to know how to work with the designers to really gain their confidence so then I could translate that and take it to headquarters and say, ‘This is what we really think ‘Frozen’ will do.’” 

Sinha turned to Northwestern’s MMM Program: MBA + MS Design Innovation — a dual-degree designed for cross-functional leaders who build at the nexus of business strategy, human-centered design and technology application – to help bridge the divide.  

After applying the program’s design-driven lessons at Nike for the past eight years, Sinha is embarking on a new adventure as head of ecommerce at goodr, an active eyewear brand. The MMM program has been instrumental to his ongoing success. 

“MMM really infused this idea in me that design should permeate every aspect of the problem you’re solving across business,” said Sinha, who joined goodr in June. “The word ‘empathy’ gets thrown around so much in design that it risks sounding contrived — what matters more is embedding continuous curiosity into how we work. Design is the discipline of making every interaction better. It isn’t its own siloed practice. It’s the duty of anyone who thinks in design to weave it into every moment, noticing friction, reducing pain points, driving improvement." 

Kickstarting his journey at Nike 

Sinha served there as an intern at Nike while going through the MMM Program and joined full time shortly after graduation as an analytics lead for North America. Progressive responsibilities for the company put him in positions near and far, working as chief of staff for two top executives and also in Japan as analytics director for Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Through it all, Sinha developed a deep appreciation for bringing life to the data that was becoming increasingly important to the company’s growth. “I care a lot about how you can use data and insights and numbers to inspire and motivate a group,” said Sinha, who left Nike as head of strategy for global digital and loyalty. “You can put up numbers in front of people all day, but it doesn’t mean anything until you highlight something for someone.”  

Sinha’s responsibilities at Nike included translating data from every corner of the company into clear, actionable insight to guide corporate executive decisions. He routinely drew on the program’s blend of business rigor and design thinking to cut through complexity and surface what mattered most. He also reached back out to some of his MMM Program professors for advice on complex challenges. 

From footwear to eyewear

The same principles he learned a decade ago are still relevant today as he helps goodr grow its business. The company launched in 2015 to create fun, fashionable, functional and affordable sunglasses, specifically for runners. Their mission: Glasses with no slips, no bouncing and all polarized and UV-protected to reduce glare while protecting eyes from the sun.  

He has focused on building relationships throughout the company. As he learned in the MMM Program, forming bonds is critical for any future product success. “Be very collaborative, be very open to how different people think and bring that into your thinking and your execution,” he said. “Just bring people along for the journey.”

 

Read next: The Design Advantage

 

Northwestern’s MMM Program is a fully integrated dual degree between the Kellogg School of Management and the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering. Students earn both an MBA and a Master of Science in Design Innovation.