In This Episode
Forest Young, Executive Director of Design, FUNDAMENTAL.co joins AMA’s Bennie F. Johnson to talk about his career journey from consulting to in-house design leader, the importance of sustainability as more than a discussion point, the capacity of caring, and why design has the power to transform.
Featuring >
- Forest Young
- Bennie F. Johnson
Transcript
Bennie F. Johnson
Hello and welcome back for this episode of AMA’s Marketing / And podcast. I’m your host, Bennie F. Johnson, CEO of the American Marketing Association. Through our conversations, we look at life through the lens of marketing, looking at the unexpected moments that have been shaped by marketing the triumphs, the excitement, the challenges in these pivotal moments that have shaped lives and journeys. Through our podcast, we talk to individuals who are leading and challenging the world as we think through marketing. They may be some that you’ve never heard of, but are exactly the people you need to know. And these conversations we invite you into our world to see about marketing and the unexpected. For our last New York live conversation, we have a really special guest.
He is a leader. He’s an innovator, a strategist, a designer, and I think in many parts a good troublemaker Forest Young. Forest Young is currently the executive director of design at Fundamental Co. He leads the design discipline for new economy clients as a part of their Senior Business Acceleration team, with a singular focus on value creation.
Prior to this role, which brought him back here to New York, he was most recently held the title of Global Head of Brand at Rivian. This is the electric truck company, a role that he was able to focus on the evolution and expression of the Rivian brand across its people, its products and services. As a design led sustainable mobility company, Rivian registered the sixth largest IPO in American stock market history.
Prior to his role there, he was the first Chief Creative Officer at Wolfe Olins, which was named Fast Company’s Most Innovative Marketing Company. Innovative Design company. During its tenure, he led design forward projects for some of the world’s most influential companies, brands and cultural institutions based in New York. And prior to that he served as Executive Creative Director at West leading Design across a portfolio of early stage companies.
An MFA graduate of Yale University and an undergraduate graduate of Cornell. As I said, he’s a champion of design, innovation and impact for us. Thank you.
Forest Young
Thank you so much for having me, Bennie.
Bennie
Oh my goodness. It’s so much fun to have you here and to welcome you back to New York. We were talking for a minute. You had an L.A. moment.
Forest
And L.A. moment. And L.A. was like, what is this Smurf doing here? And then I have a very quickly hurry back to my right.
Bennie
Proper cost for those who can only hear our giggles and laughter here for us, is in a fitting. Is that Papa Smurf blue?
Forest
Papa Smurf blue? Yeah. Kind of. Eve Klein meets Papa Smurf.
Bennie
I feel that contemporary design moment that is very much that outfit right there. Right there in the space. So talk a bit about, you know, you spent a lot of your career on the consulting side. And then this was an opportunity to go to Rivian to be in-house to lead not only design but brand and your social impact work. You bring it all together. Talk a bit about that moment that convinced you that this was the right move.
Forest
I think I had a lot of fear about what it would be like to operate in the inside, and I always think that fear is a great motivator because it usually just shows. One, there’s probably an unknown degree of the unknown things that you just simply don’t understand, but also, they’re probably muscles that you haven’t stretched.
I think in my first month, we had a couple of consultants come in and present to us and I thought, oh my goodness, I used to be one of those, like a big kind of circus band leader coming in, you know, 100%, you know, assured of having the answer was 0% context. And I think it was great to be able to reflect and to forgive my former self, but also understand the continuum of what it’s like to operate at a critical distance, what it’s like to try to move something along internally and the thing I really appreciated about it was not something I would that would have gas on the outside, which is the smallest collaborative victory, the tiniest little thing that 26 hands helped to push across a goal line gives you immense satisfaction and joy. It isn’t a 0 to 1 transformation. It’s the fact that many different people made something possible, which is something you can’t really articulate. It’s kind of like being a parent. You can talk to someone who’s not a parent and they go, oh yeah, sure, I understand. But until you are on the inside and you realize what it takes to move something internally, it’s incredible.
Bennie
So you had a chance to be there where you were kind of a startup wrapped in a startup, wrapped in a startup. You think about it. So you’re one doing work in EV space. So in challenging science and concept, you’re to building a brand from scratch and trying to define meaning and then working to build the company. Social impact as well. Sustainability is a part of why you existed with with the core mission, but your role really thread through that. So talk a bit about what you learned in that time period of really going from to keep the car metaphor going, going from 0 to 60?
Forest
Absolutely. In three seconds.
Bennie
Yes.
Forest
Promotion? No. But to think about that, the three, kind of, I guess, kind of nested, you know, types of first, the first lesson was that, you know, the company was founded in 2009, in a garage, in Rockledge, Florida, and they had a completely finished prototype. And it was, you know, a hybrid coupe. And they could have shipped it, but they decided to absolutely scrap it once they saw, you know, kind of a Tesla Roadster.
And to say, why shouldn’t we be able to push for an all electric vehicle? And even more so we really are true about sustainable mobility. We should go after the largest vehicle class, which would be trucks and SUVs. And, every consultant said that is a terrible idea. You will never win over the Sunbelt. You’ll never win over the people who identify as truck people.
You’ll never be able to appreciate this Venn diagram of sustainability and adventure. And if they had listened, you wouldn’t have a brand, you know, called Rivian. I think the first thing is to understand and to listen to those that know, but also to have a kind of a first principles approach to say, you know, fundamentally, you know, as long as we don’t compromise on what it means to have a truck, but maybe we could create a better truck or a better SUV.
I think that that never entered into the dialog, this idea of better, and I do think this idea of weighing the compromise and saying there is no compromise, it’s all for the most part, you know, upside. I think the second thing about, you know, building a brand is, you know, in some ways, we probably had a little bit of the saintly foil to who you should not be named.
But I think it was interesting to think about what does it mean to create a good version of EV? What does it mean to truly thinking about building EV? Not for kind of science fiction fantasy, but truly driven by this idea of, you know, solving for our kids, kids, kids thinking enter generation. We thinking about it from a capacity of caring.
I thought a lot about some of your previous guests who have sat here and I think more and more about, you know, what’s needed as we think about this uncharted future. And it truly is the capacity to care. Capacity to care. We’ll get you to be concerned about people who are not you, and also people who exist at a different time.
And I think, you know, when I was, you know, helping to imagine what the brand would be, it’s trying to force myself to have a greater capacity to care about those who will be affected by our decisions today, who I may not ever meet and I think most of our decisions are based on, you know, fight or flight, you know, like lizard brained, you know, type of reactions or kind of avatar theater that we see play out in social media. But rarely we thinking about people that will never meet and become truly concerned about their futures.
Bennie
So while you were there, I remember you talking about going public, but not in the sense that, oh my goodness, we’re going public. But the excitement you had that your company had already built a protocol that by going public, you were going to use those funds for true sustainability and accountability work, you know, talk. And that’s rare for organizations. But but talk about that kind of living and expressing your mission through the finances and the work.
Forest
That’s the most incredible part, about Rivian. And this is, credit, to RJ, the founder, is that he realized that IPO could actually be the greatest, you know, sustainability accelerator. And that idea was to take a percentage of the IPO and set it aside for the Rivian Foundation, meaning that all of that would go into everything towards, you know, climate initiatives and partnerships. They would advance that agenda. So the great celebration, you know, for all the employees was on the one hand, IPO. And it was we were satisfied that the IPO went really well, but it was also knowing that we were putting funds, towards powerful initiatives that truly meant that we were kind of walking the walk.
Bennie
So when we think about that, so you had an opportunity and you spent a considerable time there really helping to shape. And then you open up for your next challenge. So we you know, I’ve often thought about that. You’ll parable and adage that you can’t step into the same water twice. So you’re coming back. You started off on this external consultant space. You go internal for a period of time. Now you come back with the work you’re doing at fundamental core with new economy clients. So now you’re back in, you come back a bit changed. So what what really shaped your focus in coming into this new role?
Forest
I think one thing was, yeah, incredible humility, incredible empathy. And I’m reclaiming empathy. I think empathy, like, lost its meaning, lost its way, like the word community. And I think empathy, truly understanding what it’s like to try to advance, you know, something inside of a company, you know, politically, and all the different types of resistance, good and bad.
But I thought about fundamental co and I thought about joining what I believe the most exciting company, you know, today. I said what company could possibly ever top Rivian? I thought Rivian would be my final job and the greatest, you know, kind of had specifically in the last the last part of you were talking about, which was understanding how we then kind of equip, you know, Amazon with, you know, electric vehicles.
And then you think about all the kind of climate impact that all that’s having. And it feels remarkable. But fundamental Co was very fascinating from the perspective of it was a true, true startup, a very small startup. And so we are 20 people and we’re a wholly independent, consultancy, that was carved out of Blackstone and I think was really fascinating is that a lot of, you know, a lot of my colleagues and peers kind of cut their teeth in the realm of the PE space.
When I found fascinating about the realm of private equity, which I didn’t think about from a branding perspective, is most of my previous branding engagements were about inventing a sense of urgency, right? Creating some kind of burning platform, trying to give the courage and the conviction for some leader to make a bolder decision. In the PR space, like the ultimatum is upon us always.
It is always, you know, this is a distressed asset. This is a roll up. This is an exit. This is a true inflection point, not a manufactured one. Right. So all of the brand transformations are truly transformational. They’re not fake transformational or they’re not superficial. All right. Because you’re thinking about something going from private to public or thinking about something going from a single entity to being a roll up.
And so it’s truly profound to think about, can capital but brand transformation. And so for me, that was incredibly exciting to take what I learned at Rivian. Right. What I learned about, you know, an early stage, you know, startup that you know, was well funded. How do I take those learnings and go into the PR space where I’m working with leaders, or investors, with assets and companies are going through incredibly turbulent times, good turbulence, bad turbulence.
And for me, it was the final proving ground of do I know what I know? And, you know, how do I think about, you know, future design. This inherently is designing a future for for company A going into company B.
Bennie
Talk a bit about that. I was just about to ask you about Futurism in the thought of of using the skills and powers and imagination to design a future or futurist plural.
Forest
Well, I think one of the things, you know, I taught a class called Future Design, who was the first class, kind of futurism class that was taught at CCA. And, it was a night class on a Monday night, and we all try to keep each other awake because we were all very tired. And, and so a lot of the assignments got pretty loopy, I think, because we were all pretty loopy. But some of the fantastic results that came back from the students were, whose future are we designing for? And so one of the first assignments they have to bring in, a set of personal items that they believed to be indispensable to themselves. And then they have to abbreviate all these items as an adjective. Like, these are like self-care.
So this is the self-care future, right? This is the, you know, the I need I need power at all times future. And so then they would create and promote the future that was inherent to them that was indispensable to them. And I think they started to realize that the future always has an agenda. The future always has, you know, somebody who will benefit and somebody maybe who gets, you know, connect loses out.
And so when I think about applying that to the p space, it’s understanding that, you know, company A needs to transform into company B because that is the investment hypothesis. But ultimately it sounds great in theory in other words and on paper. But how do they culturally transform? How do they think about themselves as a different species? They’re going from a domestic cat, you know, to a cheetah running 70 miles an hour. Well, who’s going to train him? Who’s going to get them on a treadmill? And so I think it’s interesting that thinking about that type of brand transformation and all the scaffolding, you know, required and futurism is actually an act of empathy, showing them the future that they can believably walk into.
Bennie
Right. And I assume building that space so that they don’t backtrack into the old way. Absolutely right. You don’t want the house cat to become the cheetah and then come back to the house.
Forest
I know you don’t.
Bennie
Know that at all. When you think about, you know, the bio says new economy clients, and it kind of gives us that broad language in there. What are some of the ideas that you were working with? Now, when we think about what’s the next new economy? Because clearly new economy in 1990 is different than the early aughts, is different than 2020.You know, what do you what classifies new economy for you these days?
Forest
I think new used to be synonymous with a particular type of business transformation, or a type of typology. Right. So it was, you know, the micro on demand companies, right? The largest, you know, cart, you know, cart, you know, you know, you know, hotel company doesn’t have hotels, the largest taxi company doesn’t have cars. And so it was all about, you know, kind of asset light economies.
I think now it’s all about interesting types of combinations. So kind of hybrid combinatorial entities. And I think that, you know, I, I get points for being the second guest to say I, is going to be infused in a lot of different ways. I think it’s interesting. There was a Fast Company article that came out this morning saying we all had great hopes and aspirations for AI, but the number one thing that it seems to be best at is summarizing, which is somewhat underwhelming, but it makes sense if time is the currency of the day, the ability to summarize and kind of get to the point feels profound.
And so I think even the act of summarizing when it comes to what can a business be, can make a business new if it’s able to understand the appropriate kind of signal to noise ratio.
Bennie
Are you telling me that AI is cliff notes?
Forest
I think that I can be something both underwhelming and also in its underwhelming capacity, can also be profound. I think that we’re sometimes so influenced by, you know, kind of the momentum of kind of this science fiction version of the future and the kind of flying cars and the AI versions of Skynet that we don’t think of, like AI as being just a simple augmentation or a desirable augmentation of ordinary abilities.
Bennie
But, you know, in in many ways, that’s kind of a perfect goal of, of new tech where it becomes something that moves us for it, that makes our lives better, that innovates in such a way that we don’t even think about you think about where in New York, all the technology that makes New York work water, sewers, bridges.
We don’t get excited about. But it’s here and it transforms lives.
Forest
I think it’s kind of like, I as R2-D2, it’s just hanging back on the X-Wing. And if you need a lightsaber, you got it versus C-3PO, which is interpretive droid, and you want to, like, silence the droid. So I think the R2-D2 model of AI is more my jam.
Bennie
That’s perfect. And I’m just I’m right here. In that moment, I feel I’m in the fighter. I’m coming in there, and I’m realizing that C-3PO is not helping me out. There’s this important space in there. So when you look at, some of the, the new design work that you see with companies who think what’s exciting you, where are you seeing the opportunities that that are really kind of shaping the way we engage with companies?
Forest
I think what’s so exciting is it used to be that if you were put on a B2B account, it was kind of like being put in detention, and now it’s by far some of the most transformative space, and that there really is no typology. Gee, I think that some of the most exciting business models are happening in the B2B enterprise space.
We’re seeing application of technology do incredibly profound things with with robotics and an understanding capital and a completely different perspective. So I think you’re going to see a complete transformation, at least from a design standpoint of like, it’s not just the B2C shiny companies that are sometimes so volatile and they’re chasing kind of the attention economy, but the most profitable business models, I think you’re going to see it in the B2B space, but then it’s going to be how do those B2B companies start to, invoke some of those B2C signals like invoke the humanity, the tone of voice, the ability to speak to, you know, the human benefit versus the, you know, the supply chain or the technological benefit. And I do think you’re going to see a collapse of the B2C, B2B, B2B to see type of rigid semblance of communication. I think there’s going to be a moment where it’s going to be a beautiful mash up, a bit chaotic, but I’m excited to see, how you can humanize some of these kind of inhuman companies and have some of the overly humanized I want to be your best friend. I want to be your best friend. Can take lessons from some of these larger enterprise companies.
Bennie
I love that we started the conversation talking about mash ups and hybridity without saying mash ups and hybridity. We started off with this moment of the Smurfs and Eves Klein, taking that cultural moment in space around this color blue. So if I ask you, since we brought up contemporary art, what artists today pique your curiosity? What work do you see that’s happening that really speaks to the future?
Forest
I think it’s fascinating. I completely have re reinvigorated my interest in an Italian architectural practice called Super Studio. And I think specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own kind of practice and about simplifying, simplifying, simplifying and super studio. I feel like the anticipated this particular moment where we are looking at a great reset, a great societal reset, like we’re at this big inflection point of whether it’s AI or whether it’s cultural transformation. And they had this language of applying this white gridded surface over the metropolis. And so I like to think about, you know, what is the language of the new beginning, because I feel like that is a moment that is now.
Bennie
Wow. I think that’s a great way to close out our conversation. What is the language of the new beginning? I think that’s the brief format. Thank you for being a part of this, and thank you all for joining us for this live, fun experiment of AMA Marketing / And once again, I’m your host, AMA CEO Bennie Johnson. And thank you for being a part of our broadcast, our podcast and thinking about designing a new future.
Thank you.