Laurens gave a very interesting and insightful presentation, not only about how Design works (generally and also, within Mazda Corporation) but also about his personal role in making Design a key success factor within the company. For most of us, this was our first glimpse ever into the car design process. We have probably all seen a few “design cars” but never knew what kind of world is actually behind these futuristic cars and, more importantly, what their key role is in the production of a future model for the car company. Laurens, after graduating from Delft University, has worked in car design globally (US, Italy, Japan, etc) and gave us some great insight into how he manages his three globally and culturally dispersed design teams. He manages a team in Hiroshima/Yokohama, one in California and one in Europe. It seems each of them has their particular and important cultural and design capabilities and contributions. Very interesting was the way he was able to bring about important change over the past 2 years at Mazda. I guess we all left knowing a lot more – and therefore better appreciating – the key role that design plays in our daily lives, a lot more about the key role car design plays in the success of a car company and last but not least proud to know that the chief car designer at one of Japan’s well-known car brands is a fellow Dutchman from Brabant.