Printable Biography of Jerry Hirshberg

He was the founding Director and President of Nissan Design International, Inc. (now known as Nissan Design America, NDA), and sat on the Board of Nissan North America. His products, such as The Xterra and new Z, have figured prominently in the dramatic turnaround of this corporation.

Having recently stepped down from his position, he is currently serving as Global Strategic Advisor for Nissan. Mr. Hirshberg was previously an executive designer for General Motors. His experience in developing a highly unique organization and management style built around the creative process has had a significant impact and made him an invaluable resource for a remarkably broad spectrum of organizations and businesses prizing innovative thought.

Mr. Hirshberg emerged as a key spokesperson for Nissan as well as the automotive industry and design in general. He has been featured in a first-of-it’s-kind national ad campaign in which he introduced new product for Nissan and articulated both the creative design process and overall corporate priorities. This campaign ran successfully for over three years.

His acclaimed book on the role of creativity in organizations, The Creative Priority, is now entering its third edition for Harper Collins. The book is also published abroad by Penguin/Viking. His concepts are currently quoted in many books and journals, including those from The Drucker Foundation, Tom Peters, Dorothy Leonard-Barton, Gundry/LaMantia, The Harvard Business Review and others. Extensive articles and profiles on Mr. Hirshberg have run in such publications as Business Week, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, Wired, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Financial Times of London, and many others.

Under his leadership, NDA became one of the great international design studios, generating such notable and award winning products as the first generation Pathfinder, Altima, Pulsar NX, Quest, Maxima, Gobi Concept Vehicle, Infiniti J-30, Xterra and most recently, the new 350Z. Educated as an Industrial Designer and attracted to the diversity of the field, Mr. Hirshberg championed the broadening of automotive design perspectives by engaging his studio in a wide variety of non-automotive projects for an international list of clients. NDA has created everything from yachts to children’s furniture to medical instruments to the famed Bubble Burner golf clubs for Taylor Made, as well as the redesign of major newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times.

During the summer of 2001, The Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego honored Mr. Hirshberg with a 20- year retrospective of his design work with an exhibition titled: Design From X to Z; Jerry Hirshberg and Nissan Design America.

Mr. Hirshberg lectures to a broad variety of professional organizations and businesses throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He has also addressed such universities as Stanford, UC Berkeley, Harvard, UCLA, UCSD and Brown, where his concepts have become part of the curriculum. He has also served on a number of prestigious panels and boards, both civic and academic.

Educated in Engineering at Ohio State University and in Art and Design at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Mr. Hirshberg is a serious painter and Classical musician (clarinetist), but also an ex-rock star during his college years with a national hit under the name Jerry Paul. He resides with his wife, Linda, a PhD Clinical and Organizational Psychologist, in Del Mar, California. They have two sons and one perfect grandson.