Warren Bramley is Professor of Practice in Strategic Design and Futures at Loughborough University. He brings more than twenty years’ industry and leadership experience, focusing on futures-informed approaches to organisational design, strategy and long-term decision-making. His professional practice has involved commissions with civic and cultural institutions, non-profits and innovation-driven organisations, applying design and futures thinking to complex organisational and societal challenges.
Previously, Warren was CEO of the interdisciplinary design practice four23, which he led for more than a decade. During this period, he delivered creative and strategic work for global brands, cultural institutions and public bodies including adidas, Virgin, Stella McCartney, Oakley, Somerset House, Médecins Sans Frontières and Chetham’s School of Music. He led multidisciplinary teams across research, strategy, design and technology, delivering projects ranging from reframing the visual narrative for U2’s Bullet the Blue Sky tour to immersive storytelling initiatives with Fight for Peace in Rio de Janeiro and large-scale interactive public installations for the London Design Festival.
Warren’s early career began in the arts at the influential independent record label Factory Records, where he worked in an experimental and imaginative creative environment that strongly shaped his later practice.
He holds an MA in Global Political Economy and has undertaken professional development through the UK Design Council’s Design Leaders programme at Hult International Business School, as well as the Strategic Executive Programme at Northwestern University, supported by a UK Trade and Investment scholarship. His PhD explores how futures methods can be embedded within design processes to enhance long-term decision-making and futures literacy. He also has extensive experience across postgraduate teaching, programme leadership and executive education, with a strong emphasis on applied learning and industry engagement.
His project portfolio includes the development of Manchester’s Original Modern city strategy with Peter Saville for Manchester City Council; design fiction and speculative futures work with Save the Children, the Transition Network and Catalyst exploring emerging technologies in the digital economy; business model development for the Medici Quartet in collaboration with NESTA; and speculative futures and spatial strategy projects with Gehl Architects.