Hari Nair, IDSA | Whirlpool
Newsstand88 Design Award, IDSA, AIA and the City of New York, 1988
A designer with a global footprint, working at the intersection of innovation and business.
Hari Nair has extensive experience leading high performance design teams, bringing out winning products through consumer focus and a deep understanding of changing lifestyles. In his current role as the head of Advanced Design at Whirlpool, he is focused on the future, leveraging technological innovation to meet emerging needs of the consumer while delivering ‘desirable’ products with ‘emotional’ appeal. He has a track record of bringing out winning products through consumer focus and thoughtful innovation primarily addressing lifestyle changes and resulting unarticulated needs.
Hari has directed multi-project relationships credited with delivering strategic change as a consultant at Hasbro, Polaroid, Swarovski, and more recently as the director of design at Whirlpool of Asia. He is constantly focused on the evolution of innovation best-practice through design intervention. His design projects have won numerous awards spanning between the Newsstand Design Award by IDSA, AIA and the City of New York in 1988 all the way to the Edison Award for Social Impact in 2012, including several Good Design, IF China, Design For Asia and Spark Awards.
Previously, as an educator at the University of Cincinnati and Rhode Island School of Design, Hari Nair has been instrumental in enhancing the design process through digital integration. Now he is “practicing what he used to preach” turning theory into practice for substantial business results.
In addition to a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Hari Nair holds Master’s degrees in industrial design from Syracuse University, New York and Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
