Скачать или смотреть 54 - The Problem With India’s Designers — And No One Wants to Admit It - Narendra Ghate

Title: 54 - The Problem With India’s Designers — And No One Wants to Admit It - Narendra Ghate

What do two decades building a top design consultancy and a shift to leading design at one of India's largest private banks have in common?

In this honest and wide-ranging conversation, Dipaq sits down with Narendra Ghate, Head of Design at HDFC Bank. Drawing from his 25-year tenure at Tata Elxsi, where he traveled the world "selling software by doing projects", Ghate shares his evolution from mechanical engineer to a design leader who understands that a designer’s true value lies in problem-solving, not just specialised skills.

He unpacks the challenging journey of building a design practice in India: the years spent convincing clients to value design beyond aesthetics, and the art of selling high-value projects by presenting a future roadmap rather than just a portfolio. Ghate argues strongly against the "hyper-specialist" mindset, advocating for designers to become holistic problem-solvers who embrace a multidisciplinary approach—even designing a studio's behaviour by dimming the lights.

Finally, we explore his current mission to simplify finance in India and his vision for the country's design future: one where design thinking expands beyond the "designer" label and becomes a core ability for entrepreneurs, politicians, and business leaders.

This episode is essential viewing for design students, studio owners struggling to scale, and business leaders looking to truly integrate design into their organization.

In this episode, you'll discover:

Narendra’s 25-year journey from mechanical engineer and "salesman" at Tata Elxsi to Head of Design at HDFC Bank.
The transition from selling products to "selling a future and a roadmap" for high-ticket projects.
Why the trend of becoming a "hyper specialist" is a "bunch of rubbish," and why designers must be the "family doctor" for a business's problems.
How a designer can control the behaviour of 200 people in a studio simply by dimming the lights (and why it works).
The "two crutches" that limit designers: blindly following a process and being reliant on a specific skill.
His vision for the future: Design expanding its impact beyond the design profession itself.
The biggest mission at HDFC: simplifying finance to unlock wealth across all levels of Indian society.





Timestamps -

00:00 – Intro
02:00 – Discovering design & cracking CEED
04:30 – Early career at Elxsi and selling Alias through real projects
07:00 – Global design work across UK, Japan, China & Germany
08:40 – Leading 200+ designers & moving to HDFC Bank
10:30 – Big breakthroughs: Tokyo Olympic pitch & autonomous driving talks
12:30 – Why India didn’t value design in the early years
15:00 – How designers should sell value, not a service menu
18:30 – Specialisation vs problem-solving mindset
24:00 – Studio case study: Using lighting to change behaviour

30:00 – Why design grows when India grows (Korea example)
32:00 – Skill mastery vs AI: Why 10,000 hours still matter
34:30 – India’s cultural strength & breaking Western validation
36:30 – India’s future: thousands of niche AI-led companies
39:00 – How India adopted AI faster than many nations
41:30 – HDFC role: Making finance simple & trustworthy for every Indian
45:00 – Why government websites are poor & how design maturity will fix it
48:30 – India’s digital and physical infrastructure slowly improving
52:00 – Brands of the future: trust, authenticity & honest storytelling
56:00 – Fixing design education: sincerity, hard work & cross-disciplinary thinking