Bill Hughes is the president and CEO of Education Design Lab, a nonprofit that seeks to improve the connections between education and the workforce.

The position gives him a valuable perspective on higher education. That’s because the nonprofit looks at learners’ experiences using human-centered design, a process meant to help teams understand the perspective of people experiencing a problem to create effective solutions. Education Design Lab also espouses the values of equity and economic mobility.

Hughes studied systems thinking, which focuses on interactions among elements of complex systems. His past includes founding a career-skills training company, JobReady, experience in venture capital, and a vice president position at the education and publishing giant Pearson.

Hughes started as president of Education Design Lab in December. Then in August he took over as CEO from founder Kathleen deLaski, a transition that was planned when he was hired.

He answered questions about the organization and his priorities there.

Can you say more about trying to improve the system for this new majority learner?
The new majority learner is not a monolith. They are made up of lots of different groups that all find themselves in the same situation, because higher education wasn’t designed for them.

They might be single mothers. It might be workers who have to transition because their industry has collapsed and they’ve got to reskill. There are a number of different groups out there. All of them have the same challenge, and we put them at the center of that process and not only ask them what they want but actually codesign solutions with them so there’s a much greater sense of dignity to the solutions, as well as efficacy.

What do you need to be successful?
We’ve found that, in order to connect the dots, there is some technology and some systems and some data that’s needed.

We believe that there needs to be visibility between employers and job seekers in terms of what the skills are that are needed and what the skills are that are available. It may mean that job descriptions in clusters need to be aligned with programs that are being delivered at a college or community college or training programs. It might mean that there are new types of assessments that are needed to highlight skills.

Read the full article about higher education by Rick Seltzer at Higher Education Dive.